


The Lives and Times of the Raggedy Doctor and Amelia Pond

by Nicor_Fyrweorm



Series: Last of the Time Lords [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Adulting Done Right, Alien Time Lords (Doctor Who), Episode: s05e01 The Eleventh Hour, Gen, How Do I Tag, Implied/Referenced Character Death, This Is Not Going To Go The Way You Think, Young Amy, probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 06:22:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21132098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nicor_Fyrweorm/pseuds/Nicor_Fyrweorm
Summary: Amelia wanted someone to fix the crack in her wall. Rory wanted someone to look at the pictures. The Atraxi wanted to recapture Prisoner Zero.Eventually, everyone got what they wanted, though not in the way they wanted it.They got the Raggedy Doctor instead.Or the one where the Master wanted to fix the TARDIS but ended up saving the Earth.





	The Lives and Times of the Raggedy Doctor and Amelia Pond

**Author's Note:**

> Follows [Last of the Time Lords](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20961818) and won't make much sense without reading that first.

Amelia Pond is not stupid. She knows she has to say her prayers every night, and that if she has anything she wants to say to Mum and Dad, that's the time to do it. She can tell God all about her day, and God will tell her parents, because that's how it works. But she also knows that if she wants _something,_ she can't ask God, because God takes care of dead people and the weather and the angels, but that's it. 

No, if she wants _something,_ Amelia Pond asks Santa Claus, because Santa delivers. 

She's a bit worried he won't be able to help her this time because it's Easter, but then again, she doesn't know if he can't or if it's just a matter of people not asking Santa for things until Christmas, so she tries. 

The crack in her wall is scary, really scary, and she needs Santa to send someone to fix it. Maybe a policeman, they help people in trouble, and they are really cool on TV. 

And, as expected, even though it isn't Christmas, Santa delivers. 

It's noisy, and right in the middle of her prayer, but when Amelia looks out of the window and sees a smoking blue box with the word 'police' on it has flattened the shed, she knows she did the right thing. 

“Thank you, Santa,” she tells him politely, finishing her prayer, because, if Santa has made the effort to send this police box in the middle of Easter, the least she can do is be polite and say thank you. 

Then, she grabs her torch, puts on her lucky red boots and red jacket, and goes out to the garden to see just what, exactly, Santa has sent. 

It's a big blue box, smoking like it's on fire, but there's no fire and the smoke is white. It's really scratched and looks a bit broken, so, for a moment, Amelia worries that whatever it is got damaged when it fell on the shed. 

That's not like Santa, Santa leaves all the presents well-organized under the tree… Maybe it's because it's Easter? Was he in a hurry? Was the box so heavy that it fell off the sleigh? 

But then, the doors on what is now the top of the box open, more smoke going out, and a hook flies out of it to snatch a heavy metal thing that Amelia is too startled to recognize. The rope tenses, and, after a moment, Amelia hears some puffing—and a hand grabs onto the edge of the box, followed by a second one, and a head pops up. 

“Argh! Point that thing somewhere else!” the head scoffs, and Amelia immediately points the torch at the ground. 

Between the garden lights and the lights from inside the box, she can see well enough, anyway. 

The man in the box climbs out with a grunt, sitting on the edge and looking back inside with a scowl. He's dressed in ripped black trousers, a ripped high-collared sweater missing a third of a sleeve, and scruffy-looking shoes. His hair is blond and he has some stubble on his jaw, and his eyes are pale but Amelia is not sure if they are green or brown because of the yellow light from the box and the way he's glaring at it. 

And he's soaking wet. 

“Oh, look at that! Do you know how long that's going to take to fix? And you couldn't just give me a warning, could you? No, better to just break down right in the middle of the flight! I was taking us to a mechanic! I could have just called to have them pick us up! Now we're stranded!” he shouts into the box, gesturing madly with his hands before throwing them down as a deep groan of broken machines, like in the movies, echoes from inside. “But _noo,_ you prissy thing. No warning for the bad—What are you looking at?” he asks once he realizes Amelia is staring at him, cutting his rant but still scowling. 

Amelia is really confused and a bit unnerved, but she just can't find it in herself to be scared of the man, no matter how much he scowls. He looks like Jane's puppy after she fell in the pool, all wet like that, and that is not scary at all. 

“Are you okay?” Amelia asks slowly, trying to figure out what to do now. 

She asked Santa for a policeman to deal with the crack in her wall, and Santa sent her the box and this man. Only, the man is really weird, talking into the box and climbing up a rope and all wet like that, so she thinks it's alright if she's a bit confused. 

Maybe Santa picked him up from the shower and put him into the box to send him to Amelia, and he's shouting at a screen or a phone in the box. But who showers with their clothes on? Was it raining wherever Santa picked him up from? 

“What do you think?” he scoffs, pulling his other leg out of the box so he can sit on the edge facing Amelia, his scowl looking annoyed rather than angry. “My ship broke and I fell all the way to the library. And let me tell you, that's not an easy climb, least of all with all this smoke.” 

“Is that why you're soaking wet?” Amelia asks, because if his ship broke and he fell into the sea, that would make sense. 

Santa must have rescued him because he knows he's a good man and can help Amelia. She can feel herself warming up to this man at the thought, weirdness aside. 

“Of course not, who ends up all wet in a library? I was in the swimming pool,” he answers, looking down at her like Derrick did that once, when he called her silly because she said fairies started hiding the unicorns when the people decided to try to catch them, and he said that unicorns and fairies weren't real. 

She had kicked Derrick really hard in the leg, and he'd bounced like a clumsy frog before falling and crying like a baby, and the teacher had told Amelia that she was a bad girl and shouldn't kick the other kids. Amelia kind of wants to kick the Boxman too, but she decides to take a deep breath instead. 

Santa saved him from his broken ship and put him in a box and sent him to Amelia. It must be like falling asleep in the car, she thinks, and being all confused when you wake up and you're at home. So, she decides to forgive him for being confused and looking at her like _she_ is the one that doesn't make sense. 

“You said you were in the library,” she tells him, pointing that tiny detail out, and he lifts an eyebrow with a look that almost says 'yeah, so?'. 

“So was the swimming pool,” he answers simply, and hops off the box. 

As soon as his feet hit the ground, he doubles over and ends up on a heap on the dirt, grunting in pain and curling up. 

“Are you alright, Mister?” Amelia asks him with a frown, wondering if maybe the reason he doesn't make sense is that he hit his head when his ship broke, instead of just being confused. 

“Yeah, yeah,” he huffs, pushing himself to his knees and spitting dirt while he uses his clean sleeve to rub the rest of the earth off of his face. “Balance is shot after all that tossing in the crash,” he adds, sitting on his heels and glaring at his sleeves for a moment before he pushes them up. 

Ah, well, that makes sense too. As long as he's not hurt, just dizzy, he can help Amelia. 

“Did you come about the crack in my wall?” she asks him, just to make sure, because maybe Santa saved him from the broken ship because he can help but didn't tell him why. 

“My trousers are not low enough to be a laborer,” he scoffs, twisting the hem of his sweater to get some water out, and Amelia frowns. 

“What do your trousers have to do with the crack in my wall?” she asks, trying to figure out if he's just talking nonsense again or if maybe it is actually important. 

Policemen wear uniforms, don't they? Is he talking about that? But the policemen on TV, the cool ones, they don't wear the uniform… 

He looks up at her, once more with the 'you're silly' look, but stops himself before he can say anything, his scowl vanishing. He has no expression on his face for a moment as he looks Amelia from head to toe, before he looks around and turns back to her with a small confused frown. 

“How old are you?” 

“I'm almost eight,” she tells him proudly, and, when she sees his eyes go wide in a ‘I don’t believe you’ look, she decides to lower her chin and be sincere. “Well, seven and a half.” 

“Where are your parents?” 

“I don't have parents.” 

“Other relatives? Guardian?” 

“I have an aunt.” 

“And, where is she?” 

“Out,” Amelia answers simply, cheering up, because he's asking a lot of questions and policemen ask a lot of questions, she's seen it on TV. “You're a policeman, right? Are you going to check on the crack in my wall?” 

He goes very still, frowns softly, and looks around really slowly, focusing on the house for a bit, before turning to Amelia again. His eyes look really green this time. 

“Why do you need a policeman to check on a crack in your wall?” he asks really slowly, like he's confused or thinks Amelia doesn't understand him. 

Amelia is seven, not three, she can understand him easily, so she glares at him for a bit. Then, she remembers he feels really dizzy because of his ship breaking down and Santa sending him here in a box, and decides to not glare at him anymore, and to give him simple answers that he can understand without problems. 

“Because it's scary,” she tells him slowly, leaning forward a bit and making sure her voice is not too loud to not give him a headache. 

His frown goes from serious to confused, despite her efforts, but after a moment, he looks back at his smoking box and slumps where he's still sitting on his heels, letting his head fall back with a groan. 

“Ugh, alright. Get me something to eat and I'll check that stupid crack in your wall.” 

And Amelia finally gives him a big happy smile. 

The policeman asks Amelia to get him a towel once she has shown him to the kitchen, and she finds him frying some bacon on a pan, while some beans simmer in a pot next to it. A couple of slices of toast pop out of the toaster when she comes in, startling her, and he immediately turns when he hears her gasp. 

“Ah, there you are! Want something while I'm at it? I could probably eat everything in the kitchen, but I'm not so bad as to leave my generous host without food,” he tells her with a wide grin that looks a bit like the ‘you’re silly’ one, dropping the toast on a plate before going back to the stove to flip the bacon. “Oh, almost ready.” 

“You are not supposed to cook, you're the guest,” Amelia tells him with a frown as she hands him the towel, which he rubs on his hair with a hand while stirring the beans with the other. 

“You're seven and a half. No grownup stuff until you're eight,” he tells her as if it was the most normal thing in the world, and Amelia pouts with her arms crossed against her chest, because she has been doing grownup stuff for a _long_ time now. “Seven-and-a-half brats get to set the table, though,” he adds, not looking away from the food, and Amelia sighs but decides to be a good host and do as she’s told. 

After a moment of hesitation, she decides to set the table for two, because he said that Amelia could eat if she wanted something. She doesn't want bacon or beans on toast, but maybe… 

“Can I have ice-cream?” she asks when she grabs the cutlery, taking a fork and knife for him and hesitating on taking a spoon for herself. 

“You have ice-cream?” he repeats, a bit startled, and, with the towel around his neck and the fire out, he opens the freezer and looks inside. “Oh, you do. What flavor—Ugh, don't like it. All yours,” he tells her, handing her the whole carton of ice-cream while he reaches for something else. “I'll take the fish fingers. When was the last time I had fish fingers? Too bloody long ago, apparently.” 

“Bad word!” Amelia scolds, trying to sound like Aunt Sharon, though she's smiling widely as she carries her carton of ice-cream to the table. 

She wonders if she should take a bowl, but finally decides to just grab the ice-cream scoop and eat from the carton instead. 

“Ooh, busted,” he snorts, and though he doesn't sound sorry, Amelia decides to leave it be, because he's a grownup and a policeman and he's letting her have ice-cream, so it's fine. 

He finishes drying off while the fish fingers are frying, but eventually joins her at the table with his beans on toast and bacon and the half of a box of fish fingers that was left in the freezer. The pots and pan are in the sink, waiting to be scrubbed once they're done, but Amelia doesn't worry about that. 

Food first, then the crack in the wall, and then they can worry about the pots. 

He's looking at the fruit arrangement on the table between bites, scowling at the apples, so Amelia doesn't feel too bad about interrupting whatever he's thinking about. Apples aren't her favorite either. 

“Why were you in a ship?” she asks, curious about that part, because policemen go on police cars, not police ships. 

Do police ships even exist? 

“I was traveling,” he tells her simply, taking a really red apple and sniffing it before he makes the same face Amelia is sure she makes every time someone tells her she has to eat an apple. “Don't you have anything other than apples? Definitely not what I want right now.” 

“We have carrots.” 

“That's even worse,” he says with his nose all scrunched up, before he puts the apple next to his plate and keeps eating his beans on toast. 

“Where were you traveling to?” she asks, ignoring his comment about carrots, because if he doesn't like them that means she can eat his share. 

“Scotland, apparently,” he mutters under his breath, and before Amelia can scold him for speaking with his mouth full, he swallows and straightens, looking at her. “Where in Scotland are we?” 

“We're not in Scotland,” Amelia answers, glaring down at what's left of his beans on toast. “It's England and it's rubbish.” 

“To think I would ever agree with a little human girl,” the policeman groans, dropping his head back for a moment before finishing his food, and Amelia's glare turns to a startled frown. 

“But you sound English. Are you from the North Pole? Do you work for Santa Claus?” she asks him, surprised, because she didn't know Santa had policemen, she only knew about the elves. 

He said he was traveling to Scotland… Maybe he was coming to check on the crack in the wall, got the wrong place because Amelia's Scottish but they moved, and that's why Santa had to drop him on the shed in the box? 

“Do I work for—I don't work for anyone!” he protests, face all scrunched like he's angry, but also as if he just took a bite of Aunt Sharon's gravy and mash. “Where'd you get that idea?” 

“You're a policeman, and policemen work for someone, like the Prime Minister or the military.” 

“I'm not a policeman.” 

“You have a police box.” 

“That's not a police box, it's a doctor box.” 

“Then why does it say police?” 

“It's a _disguise._ Do you know what a disguise is, little girl?” he asks her with that 'you're silly' smile, like he's talking to a three-year-old, and Amelia glares at him. 

“I'm not a little girl, and my name's Amelia. Amelia Pond.” 

His eyebrows rise up again, and the look he gives her is no longer 'you're silly', but more like 'oh, yes, that's pretty, now go play with your friends'. 

“Amelia Pond. Sounds like something out of a fairytale,” he tells her, and Amelia blinks in surprise before she lifts her chin with a serious look. 

“I'm the princess that kicks the dragon out of the kingdom and rescues the silly knights. Armor is heavy, they shouldn't go against a dragon with heavy armor, because then they can't run,” she tells him, waiting to see what he'll say, because everyone always says that princesses have to sit pretty in their towers and wait for the knights to save them. 

But Amelia doesn't like those princesses, she can kick really hard even when she's in a skirt, and she'll let no dragon stop her from playing outside, knights or no knights. Besides, the Romans were really cool and brave and strong and they wore skirts, so there. 

To her surprise, though, the policeman-that-is-not-a-policeman-because-the-police-box-is-not-a-police-box-but-a-doctor-box-in-disguise laughs at her answer. 

It's not a 'you're silly' laugh, either, it's an actual 'that's really funny' laugh, and so Amelia smiles widely too. She also decides that she'll just call him a doctor, because policeman-that-is-not-a-policeman-because-the-police-box-is-not-a-police-box-but-a-doctor-box-in-disguise is too long. Also, doctors are cool too, they cure the flu and chicken pox, and invent really cool stuff like TV and cars and rockets, so maybe what she needs to fix the crack in the wall is a doctor instead of a policeman. 

“You tell them! Now that's the kind of attitude I like. Do what you want, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. _You_ are the master of your own destiny, not those know-it-alls that think they know what's better,” the Doctor tells her, his smile very big and very toothy, like the bad guys from the cartoons, but Amelia decides that it's alright, because he's on her side and let her eat ice-cream just because she wanted it. 

And maybe, just maybe, she needs something scarier than the crack in the wall to scare the voices away. 

“I know,” she tells him, something that makes him let out a loud and happy _ha! _

“Right! Now that I've got some food in my stomach, I believe I promised you I'd check on that crack in your wall,” he finally says, standing up to drop his dirty dishes and cutlery in the sink with the pots. 

While he's doing that, Amelia reaches for the apple he left in front of his seat, and decides that, since he's a nice guy after all, she'll show him her Mum's trick for eating apples. 

Once he's done putting the ice-cream back in the freezer so it doesn't melt more, Amelia shows him her work. 

“I used to hate apples, so my Mum put faces on them,” she tells him when he looks bemused at the smiling face on the apple, but his expression turns to surprise and then to a smile that is almost sad as he finally takes it. 

“Everything's better with a smile,” he says softly, more to himself than to Amelia, before he puts the apple in his pocket and looks at her with a big smile. “Now, where's that crack of yours, Amelia?” 

She grabs his hand and pulls him up the stairs, telling him that her room is upstairs and she chose it when they moved in because it has a really pretty view of the garden instead of looking at the street, which is boring, and that this is how she realized he was there, because she heard a weird noise and then a crash and saw that his doctor-box-in-disguise had crushed the shed. 

He's really quiet as they go to her room, and his hand is cold and very stiff, but after a moment, it curls around hers a bit like Dad's used to, holding so that Amelia's doesn't slip away but without hurting. His grip is a bit softer, though, so Amelia can easily take her hand back when they arrive to her room. She's sure it's because Amelia is older than when Dad had to take her hand, and the Doctor knows she won't just run away like a little kid, so she doesn't pay it any more attention, focusing instead on the crack. 

The Doctor steps forward, frowning softly, before running a hand over the crack, and Amelia decides to be quiet and let him concentrate. He whispers a bit under his breath, too soft to understand, before he takes a blue-tipped metallic cylinder from a pocket, fiddling a bit with it so that the blue tip lights up with a soft whine and he runs the light over the crack. He steps back to look at the cylinder, frowning in both confusion and curiosity, and finally looks at Amelia with an expression that looks a bit like surprise. 

“It's a crack.” 

Amelia is _really_ disappointed. 

“I know it's a crack. I told you,” she tells him, because she doesn't need a doctor or a weird torch to see it's a crack, but the Doctor shakes his hands almost madly as he approaches her, going as far as to bend down to look her in the eyes. 

“No, no, it's not just a crack, it's _a crack._ Not a crack in the wall, it isn't in the wall at all! It's a spatiotemporal fissure,” he explains, and when Amelia frowns in confusion, he huffs and looks away for a moment. “I can't believe just how blind some species are, how do you even survive, seriously… Let's see. Amelia, this crack of yours, it's like a scratch, a cut, a deep one. It's what happens when you cut yourself and the wound itches, because air and flesh were never supposed to touch. Only, instead of a papercut or a scrape, it's a wound in the very fabric of space and time, of the universe. That's why there's a draught and that whispering coming from the other side. That crack is connecting Earth with another world,” he explains, and this time Amelia is wide-eyed in surprise. 

“You mean, like Martians? Or fairies?” she asks softly, looking at the crack with different eyes. 

The Doctor scoffs and straightens, and Amelia's hopes are dashed. That is the 'you're _really_ silly' scowl, but the way he's glaring at the crack tells her that there's nothing as good as fairies on the other side. 

“Definitely not Fairies, Fairies are from Earth and that thing feels _nothing_ like Earth. Can't be Martians either, it's uninhabited at this point in time. No, whatever planet is on the other side is not Earth, but it's contemporary. Not that it narrows things down that much, anyway,” he muses, glaring at the crack with his head tilted in curiosity. “If only I could figure out the language, _that_ would give us a better idea of what we're dealing with here.” 

“Prisoner Zero has escaped,” Amelia tells him, and the Doctor startles and turns to look at her. “Prisoner Zero has escaped. That's what the voices say.” 

“And you understand them? Bollocks. They must be using a universal translator then. Narrows the list down, but still… Wait. Prisoner Zero has escaped?” he repeats, turning to Amelia, who nods in confirmation, and his eyes narrow as he turns to the crack once more. “So, prison, with translators, which means intergalactic… Shadow Proclamation?” he hums, before slapping himself in the forehead and twirling around. “Ack, what am I doing?! Here I am, trying to figure out 'a mystery', dealing with the Shadow Proclamation—What am I thinking! I should be getting back to the TARDIS, fix the engines, leave this disgusting place—” 

“But I gave you food!” Amelia interrupts, worried at the scowl on the Doctor's face and the way he steps towards the door, and he stops to look at her with anger and something else on his face. “You said if I gave you food you would fix the crack!” 

“No, I said I would _check it out._ And I did. It's a spatiotemporal fissure, congratulations! The house won't fall on your head, because the wall is _intact!_ And you've got nothing to worry about, that's an alien prison at the other side, probably one of the most secure places in the universe.” 

“Probably?” 

“Prisoners escape all the time, you've heard them,” he adds in a deadpan tone, pointing at the crack over his shoulder with his thumb. 

“So, you're just—leaving? You can't just leave, you have to fix it!” she asks him, eyes wide and breathing fast, but he scoffs with an eyeroll. 

“I don't have to do _anything._ I told you, I don't work for anyone, I don't follow orders. Besides, aren't you the princess that kicks dragons?” he asks her with a 'you are silly' smile, and Amelia glares at him – and his smile drops, something like worry in his eyes before he slowly kneels down in front of her. “Hey, calm down. This crack really scares you a lot, doesn't it?” he asks, though it doesn't feel like a question, and Amelia finds herself sniffing and blinking tears away even as she nods. 

The Doctor looks at the ground, at the crack, at Amelia. Then, he grimaces and lets out a huff, shoulders dropping, before getting back to his feet, serious once more, with a nod. 

“Alright, Amelia Pond. I'm going to fix this crack in your wall,” he tells her, voice sure yet soft, and Amelia sniffs once more, eyes wide, before rubbing away her tears and nodding back. “Now, I need you to stay behind me. To seal the crack, I'll need to widen it first – like a rubber band! Think about a rubber band. When you pull it, it always goes back to normal as soon as you release it, doesn't it? So, right now, something is pulling the crack just the tiniest bit. I'm going to pull some more on it, until it finally unsticks and goes back to normal. Which means, it'll be completely gone,” he explains as he turns to the crack, pulling her night table away from the wall and fiddling with his blue-tipped torch. 

Amelia nods once more, rubbing her nose to stop any more sniffles, and takes a step closer to the Doctor, careful to stay behind his back. When he finally drops one arm, holding the torch with just one hand, she latches onto his free hand, earning herself a surprised look over his shoulder. A moment later, though, the hesitation on his face vanishes, and he gives her a tiny smile and a squeeze of his big cold hand around her own. 

Then, he points the torch at the crack and turns it on, the humming changing in pitch for a bit – and the crack lights up before opening, big and dark like a smiling mouth, and Amelia thinks for a moment that it should be full of jagged teeth, like a shark's mouth. 

But it isn't. It's just a crack, big and glowing white at the edges, but so dark inside that Amelia can barely see what look like bars, like a prison cell, on the wall across them. Or, well, what should be the wall across them. 

“Prisoner Zero has escaped,” the voice from the crack says, over and over, and far louder now that the crack is open. 

“Oh, spare me the dramatics,” the Doctor huffs, looking the torch over and shaking it a bit before listening to it. “Isn't there a setting to close this thing, or do I need to open it more?” 

He's probably just talking to himself, but neither him nor Amelia have a chance to answer before a giant blue eye appears on the other side of the crack. 

Amelia gasps and pulls back, away from the crack and the eye, and the Doctor immediately pulls her further behind his back as he also moves backwards. 

Still, this is Amelia's room, her crack, and no way is she going to miss what is happening, even if it's scary. So, she pokes her head past the Doctor's side, squeezing his hand tighter as she does so. 

The eye just watches them, no one talking, not even the voices calling at the other side of the crack – and then a ball of light rushes out of the crack and into the Doctor's pocket, who yelps and lets out a curse that would have earned Amelia a good slap, but Amelia is too startled to say anything this time. 

Before anything else can happen, the crack starts to close, glowing blue-white all the while, and, when it finally presses together and the light goes off, there's nothing in the wall anymore. 

“See? Told you the crack would close,” the Doctor tells her with a laugh, pulling his hand out of hers so he can rummage in his pocket to get that blue light. 

Amelia's hands are still shaking, though, so she clasps them together. 

“What was that? Was that Prisoner Zero?” she asks the Doctor, looking between him and the fixed wall every now and then, as if the crack could come back any moment. 

“Nah, that was probably the guard,” he answers with a shrug, putting the torch away and taking a thin leather wallet out of the pocket the light went into. “And he sent us a message,” he tells her, sitting in her bed and waving the wallet, so Amelia quickly climbs up the bed and leans over his shoulder to see. 

He tenses when she puts her hands on his arm to keep her balance and only for that, because she's not scared, but after a quick look he gives her a smirk and opens the wallet. 

Right in front of their eyes, the blank paper inside lights up in the same blue of the light that went into it, and letters start to appear. 

“What's that?” she asks very quietly, almost as if her voice would scare the letters writing themselves in boring book-like print. 

She had expected something curly and pretty, like in the movies about messages in bottles, but these are ugly letters. 

“It's psychic paper. Shows you what you want to see, what you want other people to see, and takes little messages,” he explains with an 'I did something amazing' smile, but turns serious when the letters stop appearing. “Prisoner Zero has escaped,” he reads with a soft voice, almost like he's thinking and not noticing what he's reading, but when Amelia turns to him she sees he's staring at the wall where the crack used to be, eyebrows furrowed and eyes bright as if he was almost afraid. “Oh, you have to be kidding me.” 

“What? What's wrong?” Amelia asks him, squeezing his arm a bit, and he quickly puts a cold hand on hers to pull them off so he can stand, rounding to face Amelia. 

“The only reason they would send this kind of message is if Prisoner Zero had escaped _to here._ It ran away from the prison, yes, but they warned us because it's _here,”_ the Doctor hisses, and there's anger with his fear as he straightens and shoves the paper back into his pocket, taking out the torch once more. “I saw it when we came up but I didn't do anything! Amelia, stay here. I don't know what we're dealing with or how a sonic screwdriver will affect it—oh, how I _wish_ I still had my laser—so you _stay here._ Understood?” he asks, meeting her eyes after fiddling a bit with his torch-screwdriver thing, and Amelia nods. “Good. Now—” 

A bell tolls. 

Both of them startle, because everything is really quiet in the room and the street since it's nighttime, but Amelia also startles because that doesn't sound like the church's bells. 

The Doctor's eyes go really wide and he shouts something Amelia doesn't understand before he runs out of the room. 

“Wait! What's happening?” Amelia calls, rushing after him and remembering only when she's already halfway down the stairs that he said not to leave the room. 

But he's not listening nor does he seem to care as he rushes to his smoking box, shouting 'no, no, no' all the while, so Amelia follows. 

“You can't do this to me now!” he shouts inside the box, leaning over the edge, before he slams his hands on the wood and hops back to the ground. “I can't believe you! Oh, yeah, at least you're warning me now, much appreciated. Damnit!” he curses, untangling the hook from the metal thingy that he used to climb out in the first place, and looping the ropes around the door handles. 

“What's wrong?” Amelia asks, watching worriedly, and he looks at her almost as if he'd forgotten she was there, before falling to his knees in front of her and grabbing her shoulders. 

“Look, Amelia, my box, this box? It's a time machine in disguise. It's damaged, and it needs fixing, and I'll get to most of it later, but there's one thing, _just one thing,_ that I have to do now or the box will burn. I'm going to jump five minutes into the future, and I need you to stay here, wait for me. Alright?” he explains, breathing fast but making sure his words are clear, and Amelia frowns, feeling her chest ache a bit. 

“Can't I come with you?” 

“Too dangerous right now, too much damage. And it's just five minutes, who cares about five minutes? You can go make yourself a sandwich and I'll be back just as you're done, how does that sound? I go fix this, and you can be a good seven-and-a-half-year-old helper and get me a sandwich. No butter, that's just sticky, how about ham and cheese?” he asks her, and, this time, Amelia nods, because she can definitely do that. “Excellent! Just, don't go into the room next to the stairs, I'll be back in five minutes.” 

“People always say that,” she tells him, trying very hard not to let the tears in her throat fall, and he scowls like she's just insulted him. 

“Do I look like people to you? Ew, gross,” he gags, making Amelia laugh a bit, before he tightens his grip reassuringly for a second. “I fixed the crack, didn't I? And you'll make me a great sandwich, which is more than enough for me to come back.” 

Before she can answer, he _jumps_ onto the edge of the box, higher than she has ever seen anyone jump, and grabs the ropes tied to the doors. 

He gives her a big smile over his shoulder, and jumps into the box. 

“See you in five minutes, Amelia!” 

She thinks she hears a splash before the doors close, but she can't be too sure. A moment later, though, the box starts to disappear with the same weird noise she heard in the bedroom, until the only thing left is vanishing smoke and a soft wind. 

Amelia takes a deep couple breaths, calming down, and rushes back into the house to prepare the best ham and cheese sandwich ever. And to get a dry towel too, just in case she did hear right and he landed in the swimming pool in the library again. 

Five minutes later, the sandwich is ready, the towel is on a chair, and Amelia is nibbling on a carrot because she actually likes carrots, and all that running up and down the stairs made her hungry. 

Ten minutes later, she puts on her thick jacket and hat and gloves, because his hands were really cold and that maybe means that the box is cold inside despite all that smoke, and takes the towel and the covered plate with the sandwich outside, just in case he has to do some more repairs on his time traveling box before he can come inside. 

The Doctor is not back yet when she reaches the broken shed, but that's fine. He fixed the crack, like he said, even if he didn't really want to in the first place, and he said he would be back in five minutes to see if Prisoner Zero really is in her house and catch it, so he will come back. She's not sure which room he was talking about, though, maybe the one Aunt Sharon uses as an office, right across the stairs to the first floor? Well, it's either that or the guest bedroom, and Amelia is not allowed in one and has no reason to go into the other, so that's fine. 

So, Amelia finds a clean spot of grass, gets comfy, and waits for her Raggedy Doctor to come back. 

* * *

With a handkerchief covering his lower face, the Master rushes out of the TARDIS and shuts the door at his back. 

There, engines stabilized. The only thing left now, which isn't exactly nothing, is to let the TARDIS take care of the repairs on her own. He checked there was nothing else he could do, but as things are right now, he can't even _be_ inside without triggering his respiratory bypass unless he wants to choke in the fumes. Besides, it isn't like he can actually see anything, nor does he know enough about TARDISes to do much, so he'll just have to be patient and wait for her to deal with this on her own. 

The Master has his own problems to take care of, anyway. 

Amelia Pond, a _human girl,_ of all creatures. If he had to be found after the crash-landing, why a human, and why a little girl? Blimey, what he wouldn't have given to crash in the Arctic instead, or, even better, not Earth at all. 

… Well, he got food out of the encounter, so not all is bad, but… 

“A bloody mystery, dealing with an escaped prisoner of the Shadow Proclamation on a Class 5 planet, of all things,” he grumbles, shaking his handkerchief to get rid of anything that may be on it before pocketing it. “Why did I agree to this? I'm not—” 

He cuts himself before he can finish that sentence, freezing mid-step and glaring at the grass under his feet. 

No, he's not – _him,_ but the Master is not a complete monster, no matter what they say. A little girl, not even eight, all alone and terrified of a crack in her bedroom wall? 

The Master remembers another little girl, hair and eyes as dark yet shiny as dark star alloy, as much a spitfire as this one, who was always dragging him everywhere 'for adventures, not because I'm scared, because I'm not'. Another little girl, with little hands that clung to him as much as Amelia's warm ones did. 

That little girl had grown up and they'd slowly drifted apart, busy with their own jobs, long before he had stolen a TARDIS and left Gallifrey. Amelia deserves as much of a chance as his daughter had. 

Which is one of the reasons he had noticed the perception filter on the second door in front of the stairs but hadn't thought about how in Skaro a human house had a perception filter on a room with how primitive the species was. He'd been so shocked by having a small girl dragging him around by his hand once more, babbling about something as nonsensical as the pretty view out of her bedroom window, that his brains had registered the perception filter but hadn't realized the implications until they read the message in the psychic paper. 

And, come to think of it, what was with the huge security holo-camera that had stared at them through the crack? That didn't look like something the Shadow Proclamation would have in their intergalactic prisons… Then again, it's been a while since he last had the chance to update his information. Sure, he'd done his homework during the Year That Never Was, but prison security in planets belonging to the Shadow Proclamation hadn't been on his to-check list. 

Ah, whatever. Time to kick down some doors and capture an escaped criminal. 

The Master would laugh at the irony, but the view when he finally looks up at the house stops him. It's daytime. He left at nighttime, promised he would be back in five minutes. In his timeline, it has only been four minutes and forty-seven seconds, but here it is— 

“Ten twenty in the morning?! Skaro aflame, you Rassilon-forsaken piece of junk! I said five minutes!” he shouts at the TARDIS before rushing to the garden door once a quick look turns up a blatant lack of tiny red-haired seven-and-a-half-year-old human girl. “Amelia! If you're in there, go wait by the box!” he shouts, but judging by how he has to sonic the door open, he hopes she's at school or wherever tiny human brats go when they don't have classes to attend. “Amelia's Aunt, if you're there, get out of the house!” he forces himself to add as he bolts up the stairs, because that woman is the only family Amelia has left and the Master won't be the reason she ends up alone. 

The second door in front of the stairs is still hidden behind the perception filter, but he's a Time Lord. So, he just stops in front of it and starts fiddling with the screwdriver's settings, cursing it under his breath all the while— 

Something creaks at his back and the Master whirls around with wide eyes, cursing himself for assuming everyone was out of the house and not paying attention to his surroundings when he _knows_ there's something not-human in here— 

He receives a hard hit on his temple and he knows no more. 

* * *

It's the Doctor, the Raggedy Doctor, he _came back._ Only, no, it can't be him, because he's just a figment of little Amelia's imagination, conjured to help her find solace in the long nights she spent alone, to chase away the voices of the monsters in the walls, escaped convicts from the alien Shadow Prison, a place so dark that the guards were nothing more than giant eyeballs so they would be able to see. 

The Raggedy Doctor would come then, in a box that was a time machine in disguise, always looking ragged and with his time machine smoking because of all of the adventures he lived through, one after the other. He would be as grumpy as any TV police inspector, but he would always help the people that called for him. He would smile at sad people and they would immediately feel better, because 'everything’s better with a smile', but it was hard to get a smile out of him. He always worked really hard to fix all the bad things in the world, with only a bunch of long and strange words and his screwdriver of light, with which he could open and close doors to different planets. He knew of Fairies and Martians and all of the planets in the universe, and he had a magic paper on which the messages of the people who needed his help wrote themselves and glowed blue. And wherever he went, he never asked for payment, he just wanted a meal in return. He didn't like apples or vanilla ice-cream, but he loved fish fingers and ham-and-cheese sandwiches, and he was as great a cook as he was a doctor, because he'd been doing this grownup stuff since he was eight years old. He was so good, in fact, that people only ever called him the Doctor, because everyone knew who they were talking about and no one even realized they didn’t know his name, so no one asked. 

A mysterious and grumpy hero, who sometimes didn't feel like helping but that always came through in the end and could never leave people hurting or scared behind. The kind of character a strong-willed seven-and-a-half-year-old girl would create to keep her company during lonely days and nights, someone who would take her on magical adventures and banter with her instead of just follow like a puppy, because only people older than eight could do grownup stuff, but they could have seven-year-old companions to help them solve all the mysteries of the galaxy and protect the weak and scared from creepy criminals born in a world of darkness. 

The Raggedy Doctor had been Amelia Pond's best friend, but at the end of the day, he'd only been an _imaginary friend. _

It had taken many years and four psychiatrists for Amy Pond to realize that, no matter how much it had hurt. The Raggedy Doctor, her imaginary friend, had promised he would be back in five minutes so they could catch the escaped Prisoner Zero from the Shadow Prison. 

He had never come back. 

Aunt Sharon had been really mad about the mess in the kitchen, more so when she realized Amelia had fried stuff, which meant a lot of splashing hot oil she could have got burn with. No matter what Amelia had told the Doctor, Aunt Sharon never let her do anything more complicated than stir or prepare sandwiches, and she was always supervised whenever she wanted to help next to the fire. 

And the least was said about the mess that was the shed, the better. 

But now, here he is, handcuffed to the radiator in the corridor, in front of Amy's room, after breaking and entering, and looking exactly as he had been that day twelve years ago, down to the sleeves pulled up his arms and the rips in his clothes. 

The Raggedy Doctor. 

Amy remembers the most horrible parties she's ever had to pull a job at, tries to put together some of the calm she used then, and leans against the railing in what she hopes is a calm and collected stance. She's wearing her constable uniform, the mock radio in hand to fake a call for reinforcements as soon as she sees him stir back into consciousness, and forces herself to breathe. 

It's a coincidence, just a coincidence. The Raggedy Doctor is the most well-known character in Leadworth, thanks to Amy's childhood of adventures and games and cartoons and hand-made dolls, so maybe someone thought it would be funny to try to commit a crime dressed like that. It's all-black clothing and some blond hair dye, nothing too complicated, anyway. Anyone could pull that. 

Yet, it's extremely creepy just how much he looks like Amy's memories of her imaginary friend. He’s cold too, like she remembers his hands being, even though it isn't _that_ cold outside. 

Before she can ponder things any more, he stirs, head lolling with a groan as his face scrunches into a confused grimace. 

_Right. Show time. _

Another deep breath, and Amy pulls the radio to her mouth— 

He jerks forward suddenly with a chocked scream, eyes wide and unfocused before he curls into himself and crushes his head with his hands. Well, with his right hand, the left is straining against the cuff so hard that Amy fears he'll cut himself on it, and he rounds on it with pale and frantic eyes that are more animal than human. He scratches and pulls at the cuff before he curls around it, covering his face with his left hand while the right crushes the cuff, eyes closed tightly and the whine of a wounded animal escaping from his throat. 

Amy tries to move closer to him, but it's like her body doesn't want to do so, too afraid and shocked by the trembling and whimpering form curled against the radiator. What's going on? Is he hurt? She didn't hit him that hard, did she? 

She tries to put herself together, but he stiffens and goes silent before she can manage. 

And then, after some tense seconds of both of them holding their breath, he slumps with a tremulous but relieved sigh, muttering something that sounds a lot like ‘just my heart’ over and over under his breath. 

Only when he uncurls some more, pulling his head away to stare down at the cuff around his reddened but unharmed wrist with a confused frown, does Amy manage to finally put herself together, straightening and clearing her throat perhaps a bit too loudly, judging by how quickly he turns to her, shoulders tense. 

“Back with us?” she asks with her best serious voice, trying to mask any worry or uncertainty she feels. 

She lost the key to the cuffs, she remembers just now, and the last thing she wants is for him to suffer a panic attack or worse while Amy is unable to even get him down the stairs. She could always call the police, the _actual_ police, but… 

What would she tell them? _Hey, police? Yeah, my imaginary friend, the one with the time traveling box, has finally shown up and broken into my house. I have him cuffed to a radiator but I lost the key of the cuffs. Can someone come pick him up? _

Yeah, no. She can see _exactly_ how that will go. 

Oh, but what if it's a prank? … Well, then the idiot deserves some time out for choosing to come in here looking like _that._ She will worry about the cuffs after he begs for forgiveness. 

Only, instead of begging for forgiveness, he's looking her from head to toe with a bemused look on his face. 

“What are you wearing? Is it Halloween? Did I mess up the date too and land on Halloween? Because I forgot my costume in my other time-travelling box, so sorry about that,” he finally snarks, giving her a mocking grin that is way too familiar. 

“It's my uniform. I'm a policewoman,” Amy scolds him, ignoring the tiny part of her brain that is telling her she knows that voice. “And you're under arrest for breaking and entering. You'll have a lot of explaining to do once the reinforcements arrive.” 

“Drop the act, girly. No _proper_ uniform would have a skirt like that. Kudos for the quick thinking, though, that gig would have certainly done it for any of the idiots in the streets,” he snorts, making her blush in anger and embarrassment, before he turns serious, his glare freezing her in the spot. “Now, get these cuffs off me, I've got important things to do.” 

“No bloody way, Mister. I don't care who you think you are, but this is still breaking and entering, and you're going nowhere until I have some answers!” she protests, fists on her hips as she glares down at him, no longer caring whether he believes her to be a policewoman or not. 

After all, he's still cuffed to the radiator, so it's not like he's going anywhere. 

“Get me out of these and I'll consider it,” he answers with a mightier-than-thou grin, shaking the cuffs so they clink against the radiator, and Amy's about to start cursing him again when she sees him put a hand in his pocket. 

They both tense at about the same time, Amy with wariness at the realization that he might have a weapon on him and she hadn't checked, while he appears more shocked than anything. 

Completely ignoring Amy, he focuses fully on his pocket, rummaging around, before reaching for the other one with his cuffed hand, having just enough leeway to do that, his shock turning to anger. 

“Where is it?!” he roars, glaring at her with eyes that are a pale amber-green and that, for a second, make Amy fear she'll be set ablaze. “Where's the screwdriver?!” 

The screwdriver. The screwdriver of light, which could open and close doors to amazing worlds with a blue light and a high-pitched whir. 

But that means— 

“I didn't take it. I just dragged you here and cuffed you to the radiator,” Amy answers hurriedly before she can think better of it, though she collects herself quickly after that. “And what the Hell are you doing with a screwdriver in your pocket? Is that how you broke into my place?” 

His snarl freezes in surprise, before it morphs into an analyzing frown. 

“_Your_ place? Are you Amelia's aunt?” 

Amy freezes, but fortunately, she manages not to show anything more than surprise. 

Amelia. No one has called her Amelia in _years,_ not since she accepted the Raggedy Doctor was just a figment of her imagination and decided that 'Amelia Pond' really was like something out of a fairytale. 

The only way someone would know 'Amelia' lived here is— 

Okay, no, all of Leadworth knows that. But the way he used that name, the _familiarity,_ is more than enough reason to shock Amy into stillness. 

“Amelia?” she repeats, voice thankfully blank, and he scowls derisively, as if she's the stupidest person he has ever run into. 

It is _nothing_ like those 'you're silly' grins from the Raggedy Doctor. This one is meant to _hurt. _

“Amelia Pond, seven and a half, ginger, Scottish, lives with her aunt, and she and everyone else in this bloody house is in danger _unless you get me out of these cuffs,”_ he hisses, his glare somehow intensifying, but Amy clings to her shock, because that's better than reacting to what is essentially a description of herself twelve years ago. 

_It can't be. He isn't real. _

“Amelia Pond hasn't lived here in a long time,” she tells him, fortunately still calm, and his lips pull back in an animalistic display that has her shivering and taking a step back. “Six months. Amelia Pond hasn't lived here for six months.” 

His snarl vanishes, replaced by shocked surprise, before he shakes his head and focuses back on her. 

“Doesn't matter, Prisoner Zero is still here. Get these cuffs off me and you might survive,” he growls, and the reason Amy shivers is as much the threat in his voice as it is that name. 

Prisoner Zero. 

_Prisoner Zero has escaped. _

This is not her Raggedy Doctor, he _can't be_ her Raggedy Doctor, because her Raggedy Doctor was a figment of her imagination, and, no matter how gruff he was, he was never this _scary. _

But only her Raggedy Doctor would know—alright, no, because Amelia told everyone about the Raggedy Doctor and Prisoner Zero and their adventures trying to hunt the elusive criminal down. 

Still, there’s just one person who would talk about Amelia Pond and Prisoner Zero as if it was something that happened only—only _five minutes ago. _

“Who are you?” Amy whispers, taking another step back as she tries to put her mind in order, and he pulls on the cuffs once more as he maneuvers himself into a crouch. 

“I'm—” he starts, still snarling, before cutting himself off with a sharp inhale, jerking his head down to glare at the floor with a mixture of pain and anger. 

“What? What's wrong?” Amy asks, moving a step forward before she can stop herself and kneeling to try and catch his attention. 

He takes a deep breath, eyes tightly closed, and whispers under his breath. As focused as she is on him, Amy manages to catch his words despite how softly he speaks. 

“No, no, that's not how this works, how was that… Rules, yes, that's it, what were they? Oh, Doctor Rule Number One is no killing, that one's easy. Doctor Rule Number Two, huh, that was… Be nice. No, that's not right… Number Two is no hurting people, that sounds better. And Doctor Rule Number Three… One chance, always give the idiots one chance to surrender and accept help, yup, that's Number Three,” he whispers, nodding to himself and looking calmer – and then he looks up and meets Amy's eyes as if he'd known she was listening all along, his voice a tad louder as he continues, just enough that she doesn't drown his next words with her startled gasp. “Doctor Rule Number Four is if the idiots don't take that chance, ignore Rules One to Three.” 

And then he smiles widely and it's all teeth, eyes bright in a face darkened by his bowed head and the light from the window coming from behind him. 

It should be scary, terrifying, but perhaps the most surprising since she heard the would-be burglar break into her house, Amy feels _hopeful_ instead. 

_“You tell them! Now that's the kind of attitude I like. Do what you want, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. _You_ are the master of your own destiny, not those know-it-alls that think they know what's better.” _

That's what the Raggedy Doctor had said when Amy told him she was the kind of princess that rescued the knights. She remembers thinking that he was scary and that it was good, because they needed something scarier that the voices on the other side of the crack in her wall to scare them away. 

“Oh my God, it's _you,”_ Amy whispers before she can stop herself, startled and hopeful at the same time, and his menacing grin falls to be replaced by a confused frown. “You're him, the man that came in the blue box, the one that fixed the crack in my wall.” 

“Amelia? Amelia Pond?” the Doctor asks her with his face slack in surprise, eyebrows almost at his hairline, and Amy sits on her heels and covers her lower face with her hands, taking a couple of deep breaths, before nodding. “But—How long has it been? It was barely five minutes for me, but you're all grown up now!” 

“Twelve years,” she tells him in a soft voice, before something snaps in her and she leans forward accusingly, pointing a finger at his face that has him leaning back against the radiator with his hands held up, as if she was aiming a gun instead. “Twelve years! You were gone for twelve years! Everyone thought you were just an imaginary friend I made up and became obsessed with. I had to go to _four_ psychiatrists.” 

“Obsessed? What do you mean, _obsessed?” _

“Four! Psychiatrists!” she repeats instead, unwilling to talk about the games and the cartoons and the dolls, not sure if she won't spontaneously combust from embarrassment if he learns of those. “You destroyed the shed and said there was a monster from another world hiding in the house but that you would be back in five minutes. What do you think my aunt thought when she came back and saw the mess in the kitchen? And _the shed?!”_ she scolds, and, this time, he has the decency to give her a mixture between a sheepish grin and an embarrassed grimace. 

“I told you, the controls were damaged! Linearly, it has been only seven minutes twenty-two seconds for me,” he tells her as explanation, but she can only give him an incredulous look. 

“Seven minutes and _twenty-two_ seconds?” 

“Thirty-four seconds now. Thirty-five. Thirty-si—” 

“Are you _serious?!” _

“Of course I'm serious! I can't not be serious when it comes to time. Of course, I could always lie to you, but what would I gain from it?” 

Instead of answering, Amy lets out a frustrated cry and buries her face in her hands. 

“Amelia? I really am serious. Prisoner Zero is still here. You need to get these cuffs off me and give me back my screwdriver. If it really has had twelve years to hide and plan, it's more dangerous than ever,” the Raggedy Doctor tells her, far calmer than before, almost _understanding,_ and it is Amy's turn to look at him with embarrassment and a touch of guilt. 

“… I lost the key. And I didn't take your screwdriver, honest,” she tells him, and his grimace is almost physically pained. 

“… Tell me you're wearing bobby pins under that costume hat?” 

She isn’t, but it takes her just a second to walk into her room and retrieve one for him to pick the cuffs' lock. His wrist is no longer reddened from his previous struggles, but he rubs it anyway, standing up and glaring at the door in front of the stairs with that laser-focused determination that, even twelve years and four psychiatrists later, still fills Amy with awe and hope. 

“You're sure my sonic screwdriver didn't fall down the stairs or something, aren't you,” he asks without asking, more like a statement, and Amy winces as if he'd chastised her instead of just making an observation. 

“I think it would have made some noise if it had. We're talking about that metallic cylinder with the blue light that you used to close the crack, right?” 

“Yeah, that's a sonic screwdriver. One I'm quite attached to, even though it's sonic,” he answers absentmindedly, striding confidently to the door in front of the stairs— 

Only, he's not, moving instead next to it, to where—to nothing—to— 

“What are you doing? There's nothing there,” Amy asks, shaking her head as she tries to clear the slight dizziness that has fallen over her as she tries to focus on the Doctor, who gives her an amused look over his shoulder. 

It's his 'you're silly' smile, the one she remembers from twelve years ago, and despite how offended she is to see it directed at her again, part of her is happy to see it nonetheless. 

“Psy-blind species, you lot. It's a perception filter, it makes your brain not want to focus on it, but you can still _see_ it. This, Amelia, is a door. A door that has been here for twelve years, and that your brain has never registered before despite walking past it all the time,” he explains, starting with amusement in his voice that turns into low-simmering anger, and Amy closes her eyes and takes a deep breath – and her eyes snap open when she hears the whine of old hinges opening. “Unlocked. That can't be good. Wait out here.” 

But Amy isn't listening anymore, staring in wide-eyed disbelief as the Doctor peeks inside a dusty and damaged room that she could have sworn wasn't there two seconds ago. The door is a yellowish-white, owing to how long it has gone unpainted, and the dark blue paint is scratched and peeling off, revealing the cold gray wall underneath. 

The Doctor doesn't hesitate after his first cursory look, stepping confidently but quietly inside, while Amy reels. A whole room in her house, and she hasn't noticed in the twelve years she's been here. Twelve years, just walking past it, while an escaped prisoner from another world, an _alien,_ lived just down the corridor, and who knows what it had been convicted for in the first place? 

Amy is about ready to hyperventilate when the Doctor's voice brings her back to reality with a start. 

“Found my screwdriver! Oh, that's just disgusting – did it chew on it? I really hope this is drool instead of something else… Or, you know, I'd rather it wasn't drool at all, but with my luck…” he grumbles, but Amy manages to catch his words as she steps closer to the door, almost in a trance. “Stay where you are, Amelia. I've found Prisoner Zero.” 

And Amy freezes. Prisoner Zero is in there, with her Raggedy Doctor. It took the Doctor's screwdriver somehow, without Amy noticing. Maybe when she went to change and get the cuffs? 

“What is it?” Amy asks from her spot, remembering the giant eyeball they saw on the other side of the crack. 

“Don't know. It'll kill me if I see it, and I'd rather not die today. It would be quite pathetic, don't you think? I've had quite impressive deaths so far, and I don't plan on lowering the bar,” he comments casually, his words making Amy frown, but before she can ask, he appears on the doorway, wiping the screwdriver clean of some kind of colorless sticky goo on his sleeve, as unbothered as if there was nothing wrong with having an alien criminal living in a secret room of her house for twelve years. “Found it! Don't know what it did to it, though, I'll have to give it a thorough check,” he tells her with a happy grin, waving the screwdriver as he closes the door behind him – and whirls around with the screwdriver whirring madly after a start, the lock clicking shut a moment later. “Run,” he tells her, serious once more and with bright green eyes drilling into hers, and Amy turns around before she can think about it. 

She's pulled back almost immediately and guided down the stairs by a strong grip on her arm that prevents her from tripping. She would be embarrassed when she realizes she was running to her room, if not for the fact her mind's too busy processing the shock to feel anything right now. 

“What's going on?!” Amy shouts when they reach the bottom floor, yelping when a loud crash echoes for above, followed by the sound of metal slamming on wood. “What's that?!” 

“You really thought a door would stop it? How can you be so ignorant?” the Doctor scoffs, pushing her outside as he closes the garden door and locks it with his screwdriver. “Prisoner Zero is an interdimensional multiform from outer space. Did you really think it would be scared of _wood?”_ he scoffs once more with the insulting look, and Amy rears up to protest before she's cut by _barking_ from the inside, of all things. “Alright, that's just wrong. Where did it get the pattern for a _dog?_ You need a psychic link for that kind of thing, a live one, but a _dog?” _

“What is going _on?!”_ Amy asks again, this time wrapping her hands around the Doctor's arm and shaking him a bit to get his attention. 

“I _told you!_ Prisoner Zero, multiform, perception filter!” 

“That makes no sense! What does it want? Is it going to kill us?” she asks, calmer this time, and lets go when the Doctor pulls his arm back. 

“Why bother? It's just the two of us, and no one knows what it really looks like. We're not a threat, so it would be a waste of time to try and track us down. No one can see its room and humans aren't exactly open-minded to the idea of aliens. You told people about me these past twelve years, didn't you? And where did that get you?” he explains, lifting an eyebrow mockingly, and Amy can only cross her arms with a glare, getting the point. “There, was that so hard? No backup, no facial recognition, no threat.” 

“Attention, Prisoner Zero. The human residence is surrounded,” a voice calls from all around them, sounding as if coming from a megaphone, and they both turn around to try and find the origin. 

“You said no backup!” Amy shouts, turning to the Doctor, whose slack-jawed expression turns into a disgruntled scowl. 

“About bloody time they turned up!” he sniffs contemptuously, and calmly walks away from the door, towards the damaged and smoking blue police box in the garden, standing upright this time. “That's the prison guards, _finally_ doing their job. Let's go get some ice-cream, or whatever, while they clean up their mess, shall we?” he asks Amy casually over his shoulder, and, no longer knowing what to think, Amy follows him to the box. 

It looks like a big blue wooden telephone cabin, if not for the words 'police box', the lantern atop it and the paper on the door detailing its function, but Amy is too startled looking it all over to focus on whatever is written. The Doctor pulls a key out of his pocket and tries to open the door, which doesn't bulge, while ignoring the megaphone call repeating itself all around them. 

“Still rebuilding,” he huffs, annoyed, before turning to Amy with a big grin. “I changed my mind, let's get a big English breakfast, shall we, Amelia? You can tell me all about your Halloween costume once we're sitting down with some warm food.” 

“What's your obsession with food?” Amy asks before she can think better of it, shaking her head once she processes her words. “No, forget that. And this is not a Halloween costume, I'm a kissogram!” 

He looks almost hilariously startled at that, but before Amy can do more than scowl at him, they both freeze. 

The megaphone message has changed. 

“Did they just say—?” 

“Shush!” 

“Prisoner Zero will vacate the human residence or the human residence will be incinerated.” 

“Yep, they did.” 

“They're going to burn down my house!” Amy protests, looking around once more to try and find the origin of the voice, but the Doctor just shrugs again and walks towards the exit, uncaring. 

“No, they won't. Prisoner Zero ran away from prison, do you think it's stupid enough to get itself caught like that? It'll make a run for it, the guards will follow, and all your pretty little dresses will be alright in the end,” he tells her nonchalantly, hands in his pockets, and Amy quickly catches up to him while trying to put her thoughts in order. 

“How are you so sure of that?!” 

“Because that's what _I_ would do.” 

“What is _that_ supposed to mean?!” she asks, following him into the street even as she takes a look at her house over her shoulder. 

“Oh, come on, don't you have survival instincts? What would you do if someone threatened to set the place you're hiding in on fire? Seriously, I thought you were cleverer than that,” he scoffs, still walking away unbothered, and Amy protests with a loud 'oi!' but doesn't have time for more before he rounds on her, walking backwards. “And that brings us to my next question! A kissogram? A _kissogram?!_ What happened to the princess that defeated dragons and saved knights?” 

“She grew up,” she huffs in answer, swatting away the finger he's pointing at her face. “And you don't have the right to judge me! You said you'd be back in five minutes!” 

“I _was_ back in five minutes! How come it is my fault that the TARDIS' navigation system is faulty?” he protests, waving his hands with a scowl without bite. 

“Twelve years!” Amy repeats, pointing _her_ finger at _his_ face this time, and he turns around childishly, stuffing his hands in his pockets and pulling up his shoulders in answer. 

“So you said, twelve years and four psychiatrists. Why four?” he asks, looking over his shoulder curiously, and Amy's anger evaporates in the face of her embarrassment. 

She manages to push it away in a blink, though, because here, right in front of her, is all the proof she needs to know _she was right. _

“I kept biting them,” she answers as she straightens confidently, catching up to him, and the look he gives her is of genuine curiosity. “They said you weren't real.” 

And he smiles, a huge amused grin with a hint of pride in it, which Amy returns before she can think about it. 

“That's the Amelia I remember!” he laughs, head thrown back and body relaxed, truly joyful, and Amy can't help but wonder how she could ever believe this man wasn't real. 

A moment later, they realize the guards' message is getting louder, and all the cheer and easygoing air vanishes as they exchange a confused frown. 

Just up the path sits an ice-cream van, with the vendor fiddling with the megaphones, and Amy's stomach drops to her feet. 

“Are we seriously being staked out by an ice-cream van?” she questions incredulously, but the Doctor jogs to the van instead of answering, forcing Amy to hurry after him. 

“What the Hell are you playing?” he asks the vendor, taking the megaphones out of his hands. 

“It's supposed to be Claire de Lune,” the ice-cream man answers, too surprised to do anything as the Doctor drops the megaphones and picks up the radio instead, pulling it up to his ear even though they can both easily hear the same message coming out of it. 

Feeling dread wrap around her throat, Amy turns in her spot, trying to see if there's anyone suspicious working on a laptop or something. Instead, she sees a girl in jogging clothes glaring at her iPod in confusion, and a woman asking 'what' over and over into her phone. 

“It's everywhere,” Amy whispers, turning to see the Doctor has seen what her, his pale eyes wide as he takes the situation in. 

They exchange a look and, without a word, the Doctor rushes to the house across the street, with its front door open, and jumps over the fence. Amy follows as fast as she can, but only manages to catch the last of his words, something about running maintenance on TV reception in the area. 

“I was just about to phone. It's on every channel,” Mrs. Angelo tells him, obviously relieved, as Amy enters the living room to see the Doctor flickering the channels on the TV, all of them showing a close-up of a large blue eye while playing the guards' message. “Oh, hello, Amy dear. Are you a policewoman now?” 

“Well, sometimes,” she answers a bit awkwardly, fending off a couple more questions about her many 'jobs' as the Doctor runs his screwdriver over the TV. 

“You go by Amy now? That's a boring name,” he comments almost off-handedly, flickering the channels again with the same results, though the message seems to be playing in different languages now. 

“Who's your friend, Amy? He looks familiar. Have I seen you somewhere?” Mrs. Angelo asks before Amy can answer, and the Doctor gives her a calculating and slightly wary look over his shoulder, turning a bit almost as if hiding his face from her. 

“What year is it, 2008? … Oh, _shit,_ 2008,” he muses to himself, stiffening in realization before he _does_ twist around fully, this time hiding himself more obviously. “No, no, I'm sure you haven't, I just have one of those faces,” he answers amicably enough, though he keeps his head down. 

Amy's embarrassment at his almost discovering about her made-up stories is quickly replaced by confusion. Why is he hiding himself? Is he actually worried about people _recognizing_ him? But that makes no sense, unless… 

Before Amy can ask about her suspicions, he turns off the TV with a scowl, forgetting all about his worry at being recognized as he turns to them. 

“It's everywhere, all over the world,” he hisses, rushing to the window to search the sky. “I can't believe the nerve of some people! Definitely not the Shadow Proclamation, though.” 

“What are you looking for?” Amy asks him, worried, as his scowl darkens and he turns to them, eyes unfocused. 

“Planet this size, two poles, basic molten core, means they're going to need a forty percent fission blast,” he mutters to himself, fiddling with the screwdriver almost unconsciously before opening the window and hanging halfway out of it, activating it while pointing at the sky, ignoring Amy's and Mrs. Angelo's flabbergasted looks, and Jeff's entrance. “Assuming a medium-sized starship—and it looks like they brought some small carriers too, why do they even bother—and that they just started charging, this means twenty minutes,” he continues, hoisting himself back inside and pocketing the screwdriver before running his hands through his hair. “Twenty Rassilon-damned minutes, and the TARDIS is still repairing. Bollocks!” he curses, throwing his hands down with a snarl before stilling, eyes closed, to take in a deep calming breath. “Right, Doctor Rule Number Five, no letting planets be obliterated even if it means the idiot of the day is blown up with them,” he recites almost pleasantly, a small smile on his lips, before he frowns unhappily and opens her eyes to meet Amy's. “No, 'idiot of the day' isn't right, doesn't ring, does it? I need to come up with something better.” 

“Are you the Doctor?” Jeff asks with a disbelieving grin, and the Doctor goes as still as a statue, amber-green eyes locking onto Jeff, whose grin widens. 

“He is, isn't he? He's the Doctor! The Raggedy Doctor, that's why he looks so familiar,” Mrs. Angelo tells Amy with a small laugh. “All those cartoons you did when you were little. The Raggedy Doctor, that's him,” she adds, exchanging a grin with Jeff, and, blushing, Amy turns to the Doctor. 

“The Raggedy what?” he asks her in a chocked whisper, eyes blown wide and looking _vulnerable,_ of all things, almost _broken. _

Amy's embarrassment vanishes quite fast at the sight, stepping to his side to grab an arm because he looks about to faint. He steps away before she can touch him, locking his emotions behind steely determination, but she manages to catch a glimpse of pain before he turns away. 

“I'm not the Doctor. And come on, we've only got twenty minutes,” he tells her, ignoring Jeff and Mrs. Angelo as he walks outside, with Amy following in confusion. 

“Twenty minutes for what?” she asks, deciding to focus on the more important issue of the aliens and Prisoner Zero for now. 

“The end of the world.” 

* * *

Today is not Rory's day. 

First, the coma patients start calling for Doctor Ramsden, so she comes down to see what's going on. Rory decides to show her the pictures he's taken of the coma patients just walking down the street the times he's seen them, but she refuses to look at them and tells Rory to 'take some time off'. Of all things, 'take a lot of time off starting now'? 

So, no, Rory is not in a good mood, and it doesn't help that there's something weird going on with the sun. He would know what it is if he just turned around, but he's still determined to get those pictures to Doctor Ramsden. And that means taking one of Barney and his dog, who are, like everyone else around him, staring at whatever is making the sun go dark. 

The first picture is blurry because of the shift in lighting, but the second turns out alright, so mission accomplished. 

Rory's pretty sure there wasn't supposed to be an eclipse today, but it isn't like he's too worried about it at the moment. What's the worse it can be? _Aliens?_ Hah! They only ever target London, and on Christmas, so why worry? 

Still, that doesn't mean Rory isn't curious, but when he's about to turn around, someone walks past him and plucks the phone right out of his hand. 

“Hey!” 

“The sun's going dark and you're taking pictures of a bloke and a dog? I think we need to call the police,” the thief muses nonchalantly, already rummaging through his phone, but before Rory can react, there are hands grabbing his arm. 

“What—Amy?” 

“Rory! Huh, hello?” 

“Why are you dressed like that?” 

“Oh, you know each other, good, whatever. Amelia, ask your boyfriend about his stalkerish tendencies,” the phone thief tells them off-handedly, looking up from the phone with a mocking grin. 

“He's not my – my boyfriend…” 

“My _stalkerish—_Wait a moment, that's him!” Rory exclaims, finally processing the situation, as he looks between Amy and the familiar man that took his phone. “That's the Doctor, the Raggedy Doctor. But how—” 

“Not the Doctor, and answer the question,” the Doctor hisses threateningly, and Rory turns to Amy in worry. 

“You never said – Is that actually—” 

“Yes, it's him, he came back. And please, answer the question, it's important!” Amy asks him, squeezing his arm, and Rory takes a deep breath before turning to the Doctor. 

_The Raggedy Doctor is real,_ a part of his brain hisses, but Rory is a nurse, so he easily shoves that part somewhere he can deal with it later and focuses on that impossible man. _This is just too weird… _

“The people in the pictures, I photographed them because they couldn't be there. They are in the hospital I work in, they're coma patients,” he tells the Doctor, who snarls before tossing Rory back his phone. 

He scrambles a bit to catch it before it falls, but when he looks up to berate the Doctor, the blond man has already turned around and taken some long steps towards Barney, who is staring at them with his face twisted in a snarl that mirrors his dog's. 

And then, they bark. Barney and the dog, that is, not the Doctor, but that doesn't make it any less freaky. 

“Prisoner Zero,” the Doctor calls almost amicably, stopping halfway between them and Barney and opening his arms in a kind of grandiose gesture. “What a pleasure to finally meet you face to face,” he adds, voice carrying easily and not sounding the least disturbed by Barney's animalistic expression. 

“There's a Prisoner Zero too? And he's _Barney?”_ Rory asks Amy, who looks just a bit less startled than he is feeling. 

“Yes, there is, but he isn't really Barney. I don't know all the details, but the Doctor called it a 'multiform'. He also said something about how seeing what it looks like would mean it would have to kill us, so I guess it can shapeshift or something,” she explains, clutching his arm again as they both observe the standoff, tense and not knowing what to expect. 

“Face to faces, sorry,” the Doctor corrects, pressing his hands together and bowing a bit in an exaggerated apologetic gesture when Barney and the dog snarl in unison. “Quite fetching, I must add. Those jowls enhance your lovely personality,” he mocks before straightening, arms dropping to his sides, and, even without seeing his face, Rory knows the Doctor's serious. “See that? That's your lift, and you're going to take it,” he tells them—it—whatever, pointing somewhere behind Amy and Rory with a thumb over his shoulder, and, as one, the two of them turn to see what the Doctor means— 

And something that looks like a giant snowflake made of diamonds swoops down from the sky, the _eyeball_ on its belly scanning the ground with a blue beam. 

“Oh my _God,”_ Rory manages to choke out, clutching Amy's hands around his arm as tightly as she does him, his knees feeling weak. 

“You get one chance to get out of my hair. Just one. Give yourself up now and go with the nice prison guards, or I won't be held accountable for what happens next,” the Doctor continues, voice dropping into a cold hiss that is nevertheless still easily heard, and which makes Rory shudder. 

Bloody Hell, Amy never said he was this freaky, back when they were kids. 

Prisoner Zero snarls once more, Barney and the dog doing so in unison, and the Doctor puts his hands in his pockets and rocks on his heels like a bored child. 

“No? Are you sure?” he asks, the pout on his face practically audible, and when Prisoner Zero barks he finally stills. “Well, then I can only say this… _I told you so,”_ he adds in a singsong tone, bending forward, before straightening and pulling his hands out, a metallic cylinder with a blue light at the tip in his grasp— 

Prisoner Zero flinches back, with Barney and the dog once more reacting in unison, as the cylinder is aimed at it—them—with a high-pitched whine. And Rory _finally_ recognizes it as being the famous screwdriver of light, the tool that opens and closes doors to other worlds. 

Only, instead of opening doors, it drives Prisoner Zero to its knees, bizarre as it is to see a man and a dog move so synchronized as to look like one being split in two bodies. 

The Doctor laughs, a somewhat childish triumphant laugh, as he turns the screwdriver off, fiddles with it, and points it at the sky. 

“Come take the trash away, boys!” he calls, sending a way too toothy smirk over his shoulder to the ship still scanning around, and activates the screwdriver again. 

Lamps blow up, car alarms go off all around, a mobility chair starts wheezing around with its rider barely managing to get off with the help of some bystanders before it can take any speed. A fire truck drives slowly away, sirens on, while the firefighters chase after it, shouting for it to stop. 

It's equal parts amusing, amazing and disturbing, though it tips towards the last one when the Doctor laughs again. 

“Sonic screwdriver! Can't get any more alien in such a backwards planet. So, _come on,_ you pathetic excuses for prison guards! Come get your prize!” he calls, pressing something that makes the screwdriver extend, the whine growing in pitch— 

And it explodes with a blinding shower of sparks and a loud fizzle, the Doctor dropping it with a yelp immediately followed by a litany of curses as he drops by the smoking tool. 

“No, no, _no!_ No, you can't do that!” he shouts at the charred and heat-bent screwdriver, grabbing it after a couple of fake starts due to how hot it must be, and looking far more devastated than the loss of a fancy tool would warrant. 

The eyeball ship finishes its scans, turns around and flies away, not having approached enough to detect the mess the screwdriver made. 

“Don't you dare leave like that, you band of _incompetents!_ Are you telling me you won't do a worldwide scan for alien technology?! You're looking for an alien escapee, that's _the first thing_ you should do! _Come back here!”_ the Doctor roars at the departing ship, pale eyes ablaze, as he gestures madly with one hand while cradling the burnt-out screwdriver close to his chest almost tenderly with the other. 

Rory looks from him to Prisoner Zero, not sure whether he should be more unnerved and wary about one or the other, just in time to see the kneeling figures of Barney and the dog dissolve into a stream of golden liquid-dust mix that rushes down a drain cover. 

“It went down the drain! Prisoner Zero sort of melted and went down the drain!” Amy calls, getting the Doctor's attention, who scowls darkly at where Prisoner Zero once stood. 

“Of course it did. But it's made a mistake, a _terrible_ mistake, and it's going to pay dearly for it.” 

“What mistake?” Rory asks warily, not sure if he can believe his memories of Amy's stories way back in the day, because she never made the Doctor look this _frightening. _

His thoughts are cemented when the Doctor smiles, the gesture looking more like a shark grin, too full of teeth, and with his pale amber eyes looking extremely dark regardless of color. 

“It pissed me off,” he answers simply, before his expression vanishes as if it was never there, leaving only uncertainty and hesitation behind as he covers his lower face with a hand and starts pacing. 

“Doctor, what are we going to do now? Prisoner Zero is gone and the aliens are going to burn the Earth in twenty minutes if we don't get it to them,” Amy asks, worried, as they watch the Doctor go round and round glaring at the grass. 

“Wait, they're going to _burn the Earth?”_ Rory repeats with a squeak, turning to Amy and grabbing her shoulders. 

“That's what they mean by 'the human residence'. I thought they meant my house, but they are talking about _the planet._ The Doctor said we had twenty minutes until their weapon was charged,” she explains, grimacing, and Rory forces himself to take in more deep breaths. 

Too much, too much, too much! London usually deals with those things, why can't this happen in London instead of here? They have nothing here to take care of this! 

“London, of course!” the Doctor exclaims, and, for a moment, Rory wonders if he said that out loud, before discarding the thought when the Doctor's amber-green eyes meet his. “Your phone, now!” 

“What? Why?” he asks, startled, but hands it over anyway, because it isn't like he has any better ideas. 

“I have a contact, high up, and I need his help sending a message,” he answers absentmindedly, typing fast and stilling, as if waiting for an answer—a beep and he beams at whatever's on the screen. “Oh, aren't I clever,” he chuckles, writing a quick answer, and, when the phone beeps again after some seconds of silence, he cackles and looks up at Amy and Rory like a child on Christmas morning. “To the hospital! Prisoner Zero will return to the ward with the coma patients and we need to make sure it's empty. I'm changing Doctor Rule Number Five to no letting people die even if it means stopping the idiot of the day – title still in progress. Get a car or something, I need to write this,” he tells them, once more looking down at the phone as he types madly. 

Amy and Rory exchange a look and, a second later, they rush to the line of now silent cars and their confused drivers, with Amy getting them a vehicle by passing herself as an actual policewoman thanks to her costume. 

“Doctor, come on!” Rory calls, opening the back door so the man can rush in, looking up from the phone for just a second so as to climb inside, before he takes the shotgun seat and Amy sits behind the wheel. “Who are you writing to, anyway?” 

“Political contact,” he answers with a huge grin, almost as if it was a joke, and Rory scrunches his nose. 

“Political contact? What, like the Prime Minister or something?” Rory asks, wide-eyed, actually turning in his seat to see the Doctor's full face instead of just the sliver he can see through the rearview mirror. 

“Or something,” he repeats with a grin that is too wide for a human, and that _is_ mockery in his eyes, an inside joke that, judging by Amy's frown, she doesn't get either. “Pretty influential in military and communications, and I know just which buttons to push to get the reaction I want as fast as I want it. I need to send a message worldwide, and _that guy_ definitely knows how to do it. You could say he's a _master_ when it comes to alien problems,” he adds before breaking down into crazy giggling that soon dissolves into cackles when he catches their bewildered expressions, but he never stops typing for more than the second it takes to glance at them. 

Rory gives Amy a 'where did you find this psycho' look and decides to face the road for the rest of the way. 

The Raggedy Doctor is way crazier than he expected, and that's saying _a lot_ because, until two minutes ago, he thought the man was a character taken from a little girl's imagination. 

They get to the hospital just a minute after the Doctor's sent whatever he was typing and pocketed the phone despite Rory's protest, saying he still needs it, and they rush inside without delay. 

The door past the waiting area is blocked by some of the personnel, but the Doctor grins widely like it isn't a problem and turns to Amy. 

“Get us in, _constable,”_ he tells her confidently, and, after giving them a grin, Amy pulls her hair up into a quick but professional bun and starts telling people to move aside for the police to get through. 

Rory takes point once they're past the doors, guiding them at a run to the coma ward, but they're too late. 

The whole floor is a mess, equipment on the ground like a quake has shaken the building, and, while Amy and Rory slow in surprise, the Doctor walks past them—and stops, forcing them to do so too or slam into him. 

A woman walks out of a side corridor, a little girl holding to each of her hands, and Rory recognizes her as one of the coma patients, a new one whose name he can't remember. 

“Officer. There was a man, a man with a dog. I think Doctor Ramsden's dead, and the nurses,” the woman tells them, but the reason Rory's horrified is not because he _knows_ she shouldn't be awake and walking like she just got out of the office. 

No, the creepiest thing is that the woman's voice is coming out of the littlest girl's mouth. 

“We need a place with windows. Does the coma ward have windows?” the Doctor asks, voice low but clear, and Rory focuses back to the present. 

“Yes, yes it does. We can get there this way,” he answers, gesturing to the corridor by their side, and the woman blinks and drops the scared face. 

“Oh, I'm getting it wrong again, aren't I? I'm always doing that. So many mouths,” Prisoner Zero says, this time using the woman's mouth, before her and the two girls snarl to show long and sharp needle-like teeth. 

“Run!” the Doctor shouts, and Rory doesn't think twice, grabbing Amy's hand and rushing down the corridor towards the coma ward. 

The three of them get inside and barricade the door with a broom through the handles before stepping back, looking around at all the comatose patients on the beds. 

“Now what?!” 

“Four minutes,” the Doctor whispers, looking at the clock over the door, and Rory exchanges another wide-eyed look with Amy. 

Are they seriously waiting for this madman to save them from an alien shapeshifter _and_ a whole fleet preparing to incinerate the Earth? He doesn't even have his screwdriver anymore! 

The door rattles a couple of times as Prisoner Zero tries to get inside before the broom finally gives, and the three of them move further back as the woman and the two girls step inside. 

“Oh, look at this. Twelve years watching dear little Amelia Pond grow up, never knowing I was there. Waiting, _always_ waiting for her magic Doctor to return. And what happens now that he's back? Well, now you're all going to die together,” Prisoner Zero says with the woman's voice, mocking with its overtly sweet tone before baring its needle-like teeth once more. 

The Doctor puts his hands in his pockets and huffs in laughter, head tilted back and eyes half-lidded, so calm and serene that it's like he knows something Prisoner Zero has no idea about, which stops the alien trio in its tracks. 

“That's what you think, isn't it? Oh, but you're wrong this time, _widdle Zewo,”_ he mocks, babbling the last words like a little child would as he leans forward with extremely exaggerated baby doe eyes and pouty lips, dropping the expression a moment later in favor of another shark-like grin. “You have three minutes left, Prisoner Zero. Drop the disguise and give yourself up and they might go easier on you.” 

“The Atraxi will kill me this time, regardless of how they recapture me. And if I am to die, let there be _fire.” _

_Oh, that does so _not_ bode well for Earth… _

“See, that's what I don't understand,” the Doctor muses, straightening up once more with a pensive frown. “You came to this world through a spatiotemporal rift. I get it, you just escaped prison, you needed some time to recover and regroup and whatever. But why not leave the same way? Why didn't you escape through another crack during these twelve years? What's keeping you on Earth?” 

“I did not open the crack,” Prisoner Zero answers, and Rory exchanges a worried look with Amy. 

Aliens capable of opening cracks between worlds? Scary, really scary. But someone _else_ opening the crack to unleash convicted alien criminals on Earth for who knows what reason? Even scarier. They have Prisoner Zero now, in a manner of speaking, and, as far as they've seen, it only wants to hide. But what is to say the next one won't have darker intentions? 

“Then who did?” the Doctor asks, more serious now. 

“The cracks in the skin of the universe, don't you know where they came from? You don't, do you?” Prisoner Zero asks through the woman's mouth, sounding almost pitying, before changing to the older girl's. “The Doctor in the TARDIS doesn't know. Doesn't know, doesn't know!” it chants mockingly, and the Doctor's shoulders tense threateningly, as if he's barely holding himself back from reacting to the teasing. “The universe is cracked. The Pandorica will open. Silence will fall.” 

And silence falls, ironically enough, as Rory holds his breath and waits, alongside an expectant Amy, for the Doctor to answer to that. 

“Right. Completely bonkers,” the Doctor deadpans, all tension bleeding off him to leave him looking almost disappointed, before he cheers up with a clap of his hands and a huge grin. “But would you look at that! It's time!” he chirps, nodding towards the clock atop the door. 

The same clock that a second ago read 10:59, but that now says 0:00. 

“Oh, I know, it's just a stupid clock. But wait, there's more! Because it's this clock, and the ones in the other rooms, in the rest of the building, the town, the country, the _world._ Thanks to my contact, every single clock in the world is spreading the same message. Really simple message, something even the most primitive minds would be able to comprehend. Want to take a guess? No? Then let me translate, for the sake of your underdeveloped brain. It's _Zero._ Every single clock in the world is saying _zero,”_ the Doctor explains, shark grin back in place, and Rory feels his jaw dropping of its own accord as he realizes what that means. “Now, I can't certainly expect the idiots up there to be as clever as me, so I left a really obvious trail, a virus they could easily track to the source when they got the message, something that would take them, oh, less than a minute. Care to guess what would that source be?” he asks, pulling Rory's phone out of his pocket and wagging it enticingly in his hand, and Rory exchanges a hopeful smile with Amy. 

_Oh my God, he's doing it. He's really doing it! _

A blue light fills the windows, and Rory's smile widens to the point it starts to hurt, because _he did it! _

“The Atraxi are limited. While I'm in this form, they'll still be unable to detect me. They've tracked a phone, not me,” Prisoner Zero tells them, calm and confident, but the Doctor is fiddling with the phone and only answers with a distracted hum. 

A beep and he finally looks up, eyes widening in a clearly fake deer-in-the-headlights expression. 

“Oh, sorry, were you saying something? I was sending some pictures to my new friends. Ah, that's right! I forgot to mention this phone held pictures of all the forms you've learned to take, didn't I? Oops. Silly me,” he tells Prisoner Zero with a triumphant grin, straightening proudly. “I love it when plans work out. And with two minutes to spare! How's the hospital food here, nurse boy? Always heard it was awful, but I am feeling kind of peckish,” he muses mostly to himself, tilting his head back so far that he's actually staring at Rory upside down. 

He's trying to make sense of the question, startled by the nonsensical turn of the conversation, when Prisoner Zero speaks again. 

“Then I shall take a new form.” 

“What new form? It takes months to form the kind of psychic link that would allow you to do that,” the Doctor scoffs derisively, giving Prisoner Zero a deadpanned look. 

The woman and the two girls smile, showing needle-like teeth. 

“I've had years.” 

Amy collapses. 

Rory catches her before she falls, calling her name and checking her vitals, but she is, to all accounts, merely asleep. He looks up with fearful wide eyes and meets the Doctor's gaze, full of dread and denial and _loss,_ just before they pale and fill with a terrifying dark anger as he turns to glare at Prisoner Zero, hands clenched into white-knuckled fists at his sides. 

“Let her go,” he hisses threateningly, and Rory looks at the alien. 

It has taken the Doctor's form, bizarrely enough, looking just like the one towering menacingly before Rory and Amy but far calmer, and with seven-year-old Amelia peeking from behind his back with a triumphant smile that does _not_ belong on that face. 

“Poor Amy Pond. Still such a child inside. Dreaming of the magic Doctor she knows will return to save her. What a disappointment you've been,” Prisoner Zero mocks with Amelia's voice, and the Doctor stills so completely that he's not breathing anymore. 

“I know,” he answers in a voice barely above a whisper, as still and emotionless as his frozen body, and for a moment, Rory is not sure if it is the actual Doctor speaking or Prisoner Zero's copy, so out of character that voice is for the man he's been with for the past ten minutes. “And that's why I won't fail again. I'm not losing anyone again, _ever_ again. Release her.” 

“Or what?” Prisoner Zero asks defiantly, lifting little Amelia's chin. 

“Or you'll wish the Atraxi had been the ones to get to you.” 

Rory shudders almost violently, cradling Amy's unconscious form closer as he stares wide-eyed at the Doctor's back. He hasn't moved at all, doesn't even look like he's breathing, but Rory is truly and sincerely _terrified_ of this man, even more than of the threat of planetary destruction from the aliens outside the window. 

“Never,” Prisoner Zero answers, and all the tension in the Doctor's body vanishes with a sigh. 

“Nurse boy, whatever your name is. Close your eyes, close Amy's eyes, and don't look, no matter what you hear. Don't even _turn_ until I touch you, and don't let Amy face this either, eyes closed or not. Do you understand?” the Doctor asks, sounding _too_ calm, and Rory manages to let out a croak that sounds like agreement. “Five seconds.” 

And Rory curls around Amy, pressing her face against his chest and burying his own in her hair, slapping a hand over his eyes for good measure even as he keeps his back to the Doctor. 

“Five seconds, Time Lord? Is that all it will take?” Prisoner Zero asks mockingly, its voice easy to hear even over the loud beating of Rory's heart in his ears. 

“You say that almost as if you know what it means,” the Doctor comments almost conversationally, and the hair on Rory's arms and the back of his neck stands on edge. 

“What?” 

“Time Lord.” 

The shriek that pierces Rory's ears is ungodly and makes him feel almost as if his eardrums are exploding, drowning his pained shout and Amy's scream as she startles back to awareness and starts thrashing against Rory's chest, which distracts him from whatever might be happening at his back as he shouts into her ear to stop, to not look, to stay in place. 

Amy grabs him tightly, burying her face in his chest, a moment before the shriek cuts suddenly. 

For a second, and despite his loud breathing and the hammering of his heart in his head, Rory thinks he has gone deaf. 

And then, a loud voice comes from outside the building, making him tense and hug Amy tightly. 

“Prisoner Zero is located. Prisoner Zero is restrained.” 

A hand lands on Rory's shoulder, squeezing almost reassuringly. 

“You can look now.” 

Slowly, Rory obeys, and his mouth goes dry. 

Where the copy of the Doctor and little Amelia once stood there's a creature that reminds him of the pictures of the fishes in the depths of the ocean. It has a long segmented white body with huge eyes and a mouth full of needle-like teeth, which seems to grow from the ceiling if not for the fact that its body vanishes into thin air before it can touch it. Bizarre as it is, though, the worst part is how it is frozen, curled on itself, jaw unhinged and eyes wide and kind of bloodshot, unfocused but full of something that, alien or not, Rory identifies as pure and unadulterated _terror. _

“What did you do to it?” Rory whispers as Amy sits up, using him as support, and looks up at the Doctor. 

Standing at their side with his hands in his pockets, appearing almost bored if not for the intensity with which he's staring at Prisoner Zero, the Doctor shrugs nonchalantly. 

“Cut the psychic link. Of course, you can't just _cut_ this kind of link, not after years nurturing it, so I had to do some rummaging to find and destroy the anchor instead.” 

It takes way too long for Rory's terrified brain to decipher the meaning of that, during which Prisoner Zero disappears with a rush of air as it is taken aboard the alien ship. 

The brain. The anchor of the psychic link that allowed it to take Amy's form is in the brain. Which, judging by how Amy is awake and healthy, if a bit shaken, means that the Doctor broke in and destroyed Prisoner Zero's brain. 

No time traveling blue box, no screwdriver of light capable of controlling electronics and opening doors to different planets. Just a really clever man with a political contact, and the bizarre and _terrifying_ ability to _get into people's heads. _

Rory gulps, but not even that manages to get rid of the ball of fear caught in his throat. 

_What **is** this guy? _

The light in the windows vanishes, sunlight replacing it and flickering as whatever was done to it is reversed, and Rory relaxes despite himself. 

The aliens are leaving. The Earth is safe. 

“What? Oh, no, you're not getting away from this just like that. Who in Skaro do they think they are, coming here like that—” the Doctor growls under his breath, glaring at the windows for a moment before turning his attention to Rory's phone, still in his possession, and tapping madly. 

“What are you doing?” Amy asks him, her voice soft but far calmer than anything Rory would be able to accomplish. 

“Tracing the signal back,” he tells them with a scowl before putting the phone against his ear, pacing for a couple of steps before stilling. “Did I say you could go? Because we are not done here, not after what you just did. Article fifty-seven of the Shadow Proclamation, and don't try to weasel out of this, because that? Trying to burn a fully established level five planet? And just waltzing off after, like nothing was wrong? Oh, trust me, there's _a lot_ wrong here, starting with your attitude, if you think you can do whatever you please just because you think no one is watching. And coming from me? You know you're in—” he says, garbling something completely incomprehensible that sounds like a cat chocking on a furball, before he takes a deep breath. “Clear? Good. Back here, _now.” _

And, without another word, he pulls the phone off his ear, ends the call and tosses it back to Rory, who almost drops it as his clumsy hands and startled brain try to coordinate. 

“Did he just bring them back? Did he just save the world from aliens and then bring all the aliens back again?” Rory asks Amy as they get to their feet to hurry after the Doctor, who's striding down the corridor like a man on a mission. 

Amy gives him a wide-eyed look and a shrug in answer. 

“Where are you going?” she asks as they catch up, just in time to see him peek into a room and walk inside. 

“I'm going to put on a show, and I need to play the part. You think anyone would take me seriously in these rags? Oh, no, I need to look _sharp,”_ he answers, going through the lockers like it was a shop, checking the clothes inside and tossing them aside if they are not to his liking. 

“You just summoned the aliens back to Earth. After that whole mess with Prisoner Zero and them trying to burn the Earth down you brought them back! And now you're taking off your clothes. Amy, he's taking off his clothes,” Rory manages to get out, all his indignation vanishing as the Doctor strips to his underwear without a care in the world, having found something he likes. 

When the bloody psycho gives them a sharp smirk and a wink, Rory turns around and decides he's not paid enough to deal with this. 

Amy, to his relief, turns a moment later to give him an amused look, but fortunately, it's over before she can comment, with the Doctor rushing past them while buttoning up his shirt. 

He's wearing smart brown shoes and pale tan suit pants, with a jacket of the same color hanging from his arm. He has a deep blue shirt on, which he's buttoning up as they climb to the roof, and a couple of ties in different colors and patterns lying atop the jacket. His old clothes have been hastily stuffed in a brown leather bag, a sleeve trailing out of it like a tiny flag, mockingly waving at Amy and Rory as they follow after him. 

By the time they exit onto the roof, he has put on the jacket and is looking over the ties with a frown, trying to find one that he likes and dropping those he doesn't on the ground. 

One of the diamond snowflake ships is already hovering there, so Amy and Rory stop halfway between it and the door while the Doctor walks to the middle of the roof, almost right underneath the ship. 

Dropping the last of his ties and simply adjusting the collar of his shirt, the Doctor puts the bag on the ground and takes one last step, looking at the alien ship. 

“How was this a good idea? They were leaving,” Amy asks, loud enough that the Doctor hears and looks at them over his shoulder. 

“You're right, they were. And I'm going to make sure they never come back again,” he answers before turning his attention back to the ship, clasping his hands behind his back in a relaxed stance. “Alright, Atraxi. Let's talk.” 

The giant eyeball on the belly of the ship drops, attached to it by a thick metallic cable, and hovers until it's floating in front of the Doctor. It runs a blue light over the immutable Doctor for a moment before it speaks, and Rory tenses at the words. 

“You are not of this world.” 

Rory had suspected, of course he had, especially after what he'd done to Prisoner Zero, but after seeing its true form and these Atraxi, he had expected the aliens to be a bit more, well, _alien._ Then again, Prisoner Zero had been perfectly capable of looking human, even if its acting hadn't been the best. 

“No, I'm not. But I'm not letting all the effort that has been put in it go to waste.” 

“Is this world important?” the Atraxi asks, and the Doctor stills, the same absolute stillness of before whatever he'd done to Prisoner Zero, so Rory takes Amy's hand tightly in his before he can think better of it. 

“Important,” the Doctor repeats, voice emotionless, before he lets his hands fall to hang almost relaxed at his sides. “Six billion, seven hundred and twenty-five million, three hundred and ninety-two thousand one hundred and fifty-four. No, fifty-five. That's how many sentient beings this planet holds, and we're just talking about the dominant species. Is that important? Or would you rather have a list of how many timelines ride on the integrity of this planet? How many of them are tied with the development of _your_ race? No, let's skip the _stupid_ questions, shall we? Which means _I_ ask the questions now. Is this world a threat to the Atraxi?” 

The eye lets out a beam of light once more, but this time it's a holographic projection of Earth instead of a scan. 

“No,” the Atraxi answers when the image vanishes. 

“Are the peoples of this world guilty of any crimes by the laws of the Atraxi?” 

A different projection, this one showing images of humans almost too fast to comprehend, before stopping. 

“No.” 

“Oh, I see. One more question then. I'm sure you know you aren't the first aliens to come here with your over the top threats and 'thou shalt obey mine demands' and all of your 'mightier than thou' spiel. I mean, you are monitoring all communications, have access to every single database on Earth, so you must be aware of that fact,” the Doctor comments, gesturing a bit with a hand, and the Atraxi's next projection shows a bizarre collection of monsters and aliens, including the Cybermen from last year, some peppershaker-shaped robots, and other strange creatures that flash so fast that Rory has no time to recognize them. “Ah, good, you've done your homework. So, here's my last question. What happened to them?” 

More holograms, these ones showing brief clips of different men, some more extravagant than others but all of them clearly human, while different voices repeat the same sentence, sometimes even in different languages. 

_I'm the Doctor. _

A serious young man in a pinstriped suit, hair spiked but eyes as dark as their own Doctor's when Prisoner Zero pissed him off, is the last that is shown before the Raggedy Doctor steps through the hologram, dissipating it. 

When he speaks, Rory can hear the shark grin in his voice. 

“Now that we’re done with introductions… _Run.” _

The eyeball retracts and the ship zooms away faster than Rory has ever seen them move. 

“Is that it? Are they gone for good?” Rory asks Amy, still too shocked by the clearly terrified retreat the Atraxi pulled at the mere realization that _this man is the Doctor. _

God, to think all those stories they made up when they were kids, about the Doctor being so well known that his title was more than introduction enough, are real… To think that _the Raggedy Doctor_ is _real… _

Amy smiles, slowly at first, but when Rory returns the gesture, she cheers loudly and engulfs him in a hug, with Rory returning the gesture as tightly as he can while he laughs breathlessly. 

“They're gone! Doctor, you did it!” Amy calls once they separate, looking at the center of the roof— 

But the Doctor is gone, bag of old clothes and all, with the only sign he was ever there being the discarded ties on the ground. 

* * *

It's only when the TARDIS is drifting safely in the Time Vortex that the Master allows everything to catch up to him. He ends up crouching down, hands clutching the console like a lifeline while he drops his head between his knees, breathing too shallowly and irregularly to be able to do more than just wait for the rush of thoughts and the drone of his too fast heartsbeat in his ears to stop. 

All the while, the TARDIS sings to him, softly, reassuringly, and he hangs onto her song to finally drag himself out of the maelstrom in his mind. So strong was the dark undercurrent of his thoughts, of what has just transpired, that he lost all sense of time. He can't help but think back to when it was the drums pulling him under, and how even then it was almost impossible to confuse his time sense as much as it has been this once. 

There are no drums now, there will never be again. Instead, there's the TARDIS' song and her soothing caress, not bonding with his mind nor asking for it, but there nonetheless. The Master isn't sure she will ever accept a bond with him, not after he stole her at the end of the universe and turned her into a paradox machine. He's lucky she has even accepted his presence here, after— 

He has to force himself to take in another deep breath, and, finally, slowly, he stands up again, never releasing the console, and looks around to try and distract himself. 

The TARDIS hasn't just rebuilt herself, but also redecorated. TARDISes, much like Time Lords, can change their appearance, undergoing a process not so dissimilar to regeneration by using energy from the Vortex. Unlike Time Lords, they can do it at any time, but for convenience, they tend not to change drastically without some kind of prompting, like extensive damage. This one has the bad habit of shuffling rooms around every now and then, as he realized when he hijacked her, but he didn't notice many changes between her appearance then and after his resurrection, other than the damage from – from _his_ death. 

Then again, it wasn't like the Master was focused enough, or concerned enough to care, about any possible changes. 

Now, though, she has undergone a complete makeover. She has ditched the organic look, for starters, and isn't that a _relief. _

Not many species know much about Time Lords, but they know even less about TARDISes, some thinking them just miracle ships. To be honest, Time Lords themselves didn't know that much, and the Master wasn't one of the students that wanted to peruse the subject, so he isn't aware of much more than the basics. Still, even he knows that TARDISes are alive, creatures of the Time Vortex that established a symbiotic relationship with Time Lords practically at the beginning of time, and took to inhabiting the Time Traveling Capsules, the bigger-on-the-inside ships with rudimentary time travel capabilities that Time Lords used in the Dark Times. With the Time Vortex entities taking to inhabiting them, adding their link with the Vortex to power and refine proper time travel, the Time Travel Capsules have come to be known as TARDISes ever since. Once a TARDIS is decommissioned, the entity living in it is moved to a different model or set free in the Vortex, so they can choose a different Time Capsule or go their own way. 

There are rumors that the Time Reapers are what wild TARDISes are like in the Time Vortex, but the Master's not too sure about those. 

Anyway, one way or another, the fact that the TARDIS chose an organic look after the Time War wasn't a coincidence. She was hurt too, damaged by the fighting in more ways than just the chassis. Sticking to that configuration, so close to what one would assume to be her natural shape, was more than enough to know just how bad it had been. 

In her own way, the TARDIS had mourned and suffered too. All the mechanical components open to the air, the cables hanging from the ceiling, the grate as the floor… All those were wounds, scars, which have finally healed. 

There are still some cables hanging from the ceiling, indicative that there are some wounds she's still dealing with, but her overall conformation is a lot 'healthier' for a TARDIS. The hexagonal shape of the console instead of rounded is merely aesthetic, but there are no more missing panels and faulty controls and messes of cabling, everything organized and properly covered. Its sleek shapes and integrated controls arranged in smooth elevations or depressions are still too organic not to notice, but they are clearly out of choice rather than due to injury. The time rotor extends to the ceiling, but has switched the cylinders for twisting strands of blown glass like stalactites made of bubbles, which the Master thinks are more for laughs than any particular reason, as he can't see why that exact shape would make any difference. 

The color theme is homely, mixing bronzes, creams and some warm whites, though she has kept the aqua lights. The rest of the room is far better illuminated and has gained an actual elevated level instead of the rickety catwalk that was so narrow it was only possible to sit on it, and even then, one had to be careful. The grate has been replaced by glass, and all the machinery underneath has been organized properly under panels and shafts, while the junk and souvenirs that had accumulated have been moved somewhere else. There are less roundels on the walls, but two large round windows have appeared next to the entrance doors in their stead. There are three corridors leading inside now, one from the lower level to storage areas, another from the console level to living areas, and the third from the elevated level to the wardrobe and the bedrooms. He will have to investigate more in-depth, though he's sure trying to memorize the floor plan will be useless, as she'll probably start shuffling rooms around in no time. 

It wouldn't be that surprising, truth be told. The TARDIS shares the same magpie instinct and scatterbrained personality as her last Time Lord, messing with people just because she's clever enough to do so. The Master can appreciate that last thing, actually, seeing how he does so himself as well. 

She looks and sounds warm and inviting, hurt but healing, and, despite the lack of bond, the Master can still feel almost at home. The TARDIS wants him to stay, wants him to feel welcomed, and he has to take in another deep breath as that realization dawns, another drop added to the maelstrom. 

He runs a hand through his still wet hair and doesn't bother holding back a sob. 

The Master showered and changed, of course he did, how could he not? He smelled like red dust and dried blood and _ash— _

His breath hitches again, sight blurry, and he finally drops to the floor, pressing his back against the reassuring thrum of the console column, under the control panels. 

He's gone. He's really, _truly_ gone now, body cremated on one of the moons in Kasterborous that was razed but not obliterated during the Time War, the one most similar to Gallifrey the Master could find. 

That void in the sky, surrounded by glittering debris, had hurt almost as much as the dead weight in his arms. But he'd forced himself to ignore it, to not think about what _else_ was missing, and had managed to get through the whole cremation without shedding a tear or breaking down. 

Only when the ashes had finally gone cold, scattering into dust in the wind of a dead world, had the Master turned his back to them and entered the TARDIS. He hadn't parked her that far from the crater he'd chosen, in part because it would be easier to carry the ridiculous supply of wood she kept in storage for who knows what reason, but also because she deserved to be here even more than the Master did. 

Good thing he did, he's not sure how much longer he could have gone without crashing. 

But now it's alright to do so. It's just the Master and the TARDIS, floating in the Time Vortex, after saving the Earth and saying their last goodbye to their oldest friend. 

Another sob escapes through his lips, and the Master curls into himself and presses the heels of his hands against his closed eyes, feeling the tears slip down his cheeks. 

_The Doctor is dead. _

As soon as the thought finally breaks past his mental walls, the floodgates open. 

He spends a long time screaming his grief out, sobbing messily and rocking under the console, but it doesn't feel nearly long enough for such a long-lived relationship, so he stays there, curled into himself, long after his body ceases its display of grief, exhausted. It's only when he feels something digging painfully into his hip that he comes back to himself. 

He digs into the pocket of his gray jeans, wondering why in Skaro he put anything in there when they aren't bigger on the inside, unlike his blue jacket's, and feels his breath freeze in his throat when he pulls the item out. 

A signet ring, silver and with a large green jewel inlaid with an ornate silver insignia consisting of a bunch of interconnected and concentric circles and lines that make no sense to anyone in the universe except for him. 

An Arcalian Memory Ring. Worn by Time Lords on duty, it would preserve a copy of the wearer's memories in the event of their death, to be uploaded to the Matrix of Time upon their return to Gallifrey. 

The Master had found it when he was assembling the materials to turn the TARDIS into a paradox machine, after stealing it at the end of the universe, and had worn it all through his life as Harold Saxon until Lucy shot him. 

He had elaborated his resurrection plan all around it, writing the 'Secret Books of Saxon' that detailed the process and how to elaborate the 'potions of life', the dissolutions with all the essential elements and composts that made a Time Lord's body, and how important it was to obtain a 'biometric signature' from Lucy, actually being the time energy, the Artron energy, she had absorbed when they travelled to Utopia, to trigger and direct and stabilize the whole process. It had been the lack of that last one which had deteriorated his new body thus, no matter how much meat and protein and latent temporal energy he put in it after. 

Until the Doctor's regeneration energy, that is, the perfect mixture for a regeneration and to stabilize a resurrection process. If only it hadn't come at such a high price… Why in Skaro was the Doctor out of regenerations anyway? Last they'd met, aboard the _Valiant,_ he'd still had one left, what had happened to it? He hadn't regenerated since then, he still looked the same! 

The Master's hand clenches tightly around the ring, fighting the urge to throw it against a wall or out of the doors. 

A Memory Ring isn't a fob watch, it doesn't store a Time Lord's self and biological traits to put them back in place later. The ring is a data storage, merely holding the memories until the Matrix's machinery can extract them. TARDISes can erase a ring's 'saved data', but they don't have the means to translate them, because they aren't meant to. 

So, when the Master found this one, when he realized the potential of having a Memory Ring at his disposition, he erased it without a second thought and took to wearing it everywhere. Only once they boarded the _Valiant_ did the Master pull it off, hanging it on a chain around his neck so it could keep skin contact while being out of the Doctor's sight. It wasn't Gallifreyan tradition to deal with bodies, since the bodies themselves took care of that when they burnt with the last burst of regeneration energy, so the Doctor would have no need to rummage in his pockets or take off his clothes or anything. 

And he hadn't. The ring had gone undetected by the only other being that would recognize it, and the Master had returned. 

Only now, after searching around and consulting the TARDIS' inventory and actually checking the Doctor's body, does the Master realize just how important this one ring was. 

It was the only Memory Ring aboard the TARDIS. A TARDIS is supposed to have as many rings as Time Lords, but a decommissioned TARDIS should have none. Which means that this one ring, the _only_ ring onboard, had to be brought inside _by someone. _

And the only Time Lord that could have done so was— 

No more Gallifrey. No more Matrix of Time. No reason to carry around an Arcalian Memory Ring. 

The Master clenches the ring in his hands, curling around it with his eyes tightly closed, and feels tears he thought he no longer had spill once more. Just a couple, just enough to let out some of the all-consuming pain and guilt wrenching his hearts apart, accompanied by a whimper that barely reaches his ears. 

One ring. One Time Lord. 

… The Master would rather be _dead. _

_“I don't know what I'd be without the noise in my head.” _

_“I don't know what I'd be without you.” _

He still doesn't know what he can be without the drums, but one thing he _never_ imagined he could be is _alone. _

Whatever happened, in those scenarios he'd dared to explore in that brief second before the old human had interrupted, _the Doctor_ was always there. 

Always. 

Like it had always been, like it would always be. 

Only, it isn't. And it'll never be again. 

“Activating Protocol 12, Last Message and Reading of the Will—” a voice speaks from the other side of the console, and the Master startles so badly that he bonks his head on the panel overhead. 

Cursing in as many languages as he knows, he quickly scrambles from under the controls and rushes around the time rotor, because the TARDIS is floating in the Time Vortex, the words are in Gallifreyan, and he _knows that voice. _

As soon as he sees the speaker, the Master stops as if he'd just slammed into an invisible wall, all the air knocked out of him and his eyes blown wide. 

It's a hologram in shades of blue, as any that would be pre-recorded and activated by a TARDIS' protocols, but the Master doesn't need to see the actual colors to _know_ what they are. 

A woman with dark brown hair hanging a bit below her shoulders in a soft wave, pale skin and with eyes the color of polished copper. She's dressed in slightly baggy clothes covered by light armor in shades of green but with the crest of Rassilon over her clavicles, holding the open black robes hanging at her back like a cape. She's serious as she speaks, professional and with her gaze focused on the lenses that recorded the hologram, but the Master knows that this expression was quite rare to see on this face. 

There's only one person she could be, with her Arcalian robes but bearing the crest of Rassilon, of the Prydonian Chapter, yet his brain seems full of static, unable to find her name or even process the fact that he's seeing this, repeating _hallucination_ over and over. 

“—will be delivered to their intended recipients in the event of my demise while on duty,” she's saying, faithfully following the script in a way that she would have never done if not because she wouldn't have been on a TARDIS otherwise. “This message is for—” she continues, cut by a short buzz of static in that second when the hologram jumps from the general message to the personalized one. 

And her image flickers and _changes. _

She's no longer wearing the formal robes and armor of her Time Lord uniform, dressed instead in a light orange-embroidered red tunic, red pants and black boots. There's a smile on her face that lightens her eyes, delighted and sheepish at the same time, and she tilts her head to the side as she pushes a lock of her dark hair behind her ear when she says his name. 

“Koschei. Hello,” she salutes with a wave of a hand before she folds them at her back, rocking on the balls of her feet as she looks down, almost embarrassed. “I know what you're going to say, _this is not the message you were supposed to record._ Well, when have you known me to do things as I was told?” she asks with a mischievous glint as her eyes _lock onto his,_ pulling her tongue out at him as soon as the words are out. “Oh, quit laughing! Or, well, I hope I managed to make you laugh. I doubt it though. After all, if you are watching this, it means I'm dead,” she adds, more solemn but still with a smile on her face, no matter how sad it is, and the Master flinches. “Missing or killed in action, I know, but _I know you,_ Koschei. And I know you wouldn't let me be 'missing', I know you would rip apart the whole of creation if necessary to find me, and that you would refuse to listen to this until you knew for a fact that I was dead. I'm sorry, Koschei. I hope you know I would never leave you voluntarily, and that I tried everything I could before it came to this. I'll miss you.” 

“I miss you too…” the Master whimpers, stretching a hand towards the hologram, and her smile fills with affection as her eyes brighten, her own hand reaching towards his. 

“Please, don't be sad. Don't let this bring you down, because I'm not really gone. Remember? There's no getting rid of me, I'll pester you until the end of the universe and time itself,” she proclaims proudly, tilting her chin up, and the Master lets out a chocked laugh, moving his extended hand under the hologram's without touching so as to not dispel the illusion. 

He could swear he can feel the coolness of her skin so close to his, but he doesn't look away from her laughing eyes. 

“As long as you remember me, Koschei, I'll be there for you. No matter how far we are, or how much we drift apart. Even if—if you never see this because I did something stupid and you hate me now, I want you to know I never would,” she adds, her smile wavering for a moment, and, when the Master takes his hand back with a pained flinch, she pulls hers back to rest in a fist against her chest with a sad smile. “I would never hate you, my Koschei.” 

“You should. You _should,_ you _idiot!”_ he roars, quickly blinking away his tears so they don't distort his sight, unwilling to miss even a millisecond of her presence despite how much he feels he deserves it. 

And, as expected, she huffs with an eyeroll and an exasperated smile, before leaning forward with her hands on her hips and mischief in her eyes when they meet his once more. 

“Quit your dramatics, Koschei! I would never hate you, but you can still get on my nerves! And I know all your ticklish spots – and I'm sure I can find all the new ones regardless of how many regenerations you go through – so, don't tempt me!” she threatens with laughter in her voice, and the Master yelps and takes a step back with his hands up in surrender, time feelers pulling back and curling in tight knots to get them out of what would have been her reach. 

Throwing her head back, she laughs, and the Master laughs with her. 

When they finally calm down, some moments later, Koschei doesn't notice the shades of blue of the hologram or the warm tones of the control room around them, instead meeting her bright copper eyes with his deep violet ones, standing over her like he'd always done after his twenty-eighth birthday, and barely holding himself back from pushing that rebellious lock of dark hair behind her ear when it slips in front of her face. 

She does it for him with a huff, turning away for a moment before she looks back into his eyes with laughter in hers. 

“I think the TARDIS likes you. She let me replace the boring old message with this one when I told her it was for you, so you better be good to the old girl, you hear me?” 

“I will, Time Lord's honor,” he answers, crooked grin on his face, and she rolls her eyes once more with a chuckle. 

“_Riiight._ I hope I've managed to teach you better manners by now,” she drawls, and it is the tense in that sentence that wipes the mirth off Koschei's face and makes her next look be full of sadness and pride instead. “I know you can do it, Koschei. I have faith in you. Not just about being nice to the old girl, but… At the time I'm recording this message, you've already taken control of some operations, and you are _great,_ Koschei. You are fantastic, _magnificent,_ and you know it. So, don't forget it, please? You're beautiful, Koschei. And no matter what happened to me, how we left things. I forgive you. I thank you. And I want you to know you can still be beautiful, even if I'm not there anymore,” she tells him with her eyes shining with tears, so she stops herself with a tremulous breath and looks at her feet with a sad and depreciating smile that wraps around his throat almost tightly enough to trigger his respiratory bypass. “I don't know what I'd be without you,” she whispers, and that finally snaps Koschei out of his paralysis. 

He brings his hands up to her shoulders – and jerks away when they go right through her form, the white environment vanishing to reveal the TARDIS' new control room, and her colors turning to shades of translucent blue. 

The Master takes in ragged breaths as she looks up at him sadly, but she composes herself faster than he and gives him a wet but blinding smile. 

“But I know what you'll be, Koschei. You'll be magnificent, and I'll be proud, _oh, so proud._ Because that's what I am already, proud and amazed and _so glad_ to be your friend. We promised to see all the stars in the universe together, all that were, are, and will be. I don't know how far we've gone by the time you see this, but… I want to hear all about them when we meet again. Will you see them? For me?” she asks, hands folded pleadingly with her eyes wide, and her lower lip is pulled out in that pouty look that he could never say no to, no matter how much he teased her before giving in. 

This time he just chuckles, rubbing away the lonely tear that slips down his cheek. 

“Of course I will, you idiot,” he tells her, voice raspy, and her smile is brighter than any sun. 

“Oh, thank you! Thank you, Koschei, you're the best! And don't call me an idiot, _idiot,”_ she scolds, making him laugh like he hasn't in years. “I need to find better insults… Don't you say anything! I will find them, you just wait!” 

“Right, right!” he concedes, hands up again as he laughs, looking at her with fondness, which she returns with a smile. 

“Take care of yourself,” she whispers, once more extending a hand while her time feelers reach out, and he lets his own hand hover under hers as his own feelers unfurl to meet hers, so close that he can almost feel the static between them, and loses himself in her bright copper eyes and the whisper of his true name echoing under his Academy nickname. “Goodbye, Koschei.” 

“Goodbye, Theta,” he whispers back, her true name warming him from his core to the very tips of all his dimensions, feelers shivering with it. 

She smiles and vanishes. 

The control room is far colder than any other time before, but when he pulls his hand back against his chest and curls his feelers around himself, he feels almost like there's another presence hugging him gently, lending him the warmth the hologram took with it. 

“You'll be alright.” 

Koschei whirls around with a start, spreading himself threateningly as he tries to mask his surprise even as he berates himself for the reaction. 

How many holograms does this TARDIS—_their_ TARDIS, the original one they first served in, as fresh graduates from the Academy, and what are the odds—have? 

Only, this one isn't a hologram. 

He's not blinding himself this time, intentionally or unintentionally, in an attempt to forget about the bad times, about all those years of anger and fighting, but the new apparition is in full color. 

Slightly freckled skin, mop of spiked brown hair, immaculate pinstriped brown suit with those ridiculous sandshoes and squiggly-patterned purple and white tie. His smile is small but sincere, and its warmth and fondness are in his brown eyes as well, focused on him as if he was really there – or like he was a Time Lord, who could use his inherent knowledge of time to know exactly where to stare at when recording such a realistic hologram. 

This is not a protocol recording, like the last one. This one is a _proper_ holovid, color and all, that he recorded sometime in his last regeneration, judging by his appearance, and probably even before their last encounter. Koschei will never forget the last time he saw him, will never forget about the suit and the cream sandshoes and the pale white-blue shirt and the stupid tie, and so he recognizes them now. It doesn't mean _anything,_ it can just be a coincidence, but something tells him it isn't, and he won't start doubting his instincts now. 

“Do we have to do this now?” he asks the ceiling with a groan, dropping his head back and shoving his hands in his jacket pockets to try to stop their shaking. 

“Oi! Here I am, trying to make sure you're alright, and that's what I get?” the hologram protests, and Koschei rolls his head to give him a deadpanned look, ignoring his indignation and the hint of a pout. “See if I worry again.” 

“Fine, whatever. Just play it so we can be done with this and I can go find something to eat,” he huffs, shifting his weight to one leg as he faces the hologram fully with a glare. 

The hologram rolls his eyes—and leans against the TARDIS' control. 

Koschei tenses, but relaxes after a moment. This is not a protocol hologram, so why should it follow their rules? For all he knows, this one can even dance all around the control room instead of standing on the same spot all the time. 

“I just told you to be nice to the old girl, and what do you do? Really, I thought _I_ was the rude one,” the hologram huffs, looking down at the controls, and Koschei rolls his eyes even as he tries to hide a smile. 

He _really_ knew him well, didn't he? Checking time can allow them to stare where they should, to speak with a timing so precise that it almost sounds like an actual conversation, and even to have an idea of what could happen, but it isn't foolproof. Time can be rewritten, can change, and predicting one's personal timeline further than some seconds in the future with any degree of precision is impossible. Then again, this hologram was clearly recorded much closer in his timeline than the last one – nine-hundred years closer, give or take a couple decades. 

“I'm not sure if I like this new design. Definitely an improvement over the last one, but _glass floors?_ Nah, don't like them,” the hologram whines petulantly, lifting a foot to stare at the ground. 

When Koschei tenses this time, he doesn't relax again. 

Scratch the whole 'more precise hologram because it's newer' thing. _That comment_ is simply _not possible. _

“Bananas are the greatest veggies in the universe,” Koschei blurts out before he can think himself into a nervous wreck, and the hologram turns to him sharply with a startled look. 

“Really? I thought you preferred—Wait a moment, bananas aren't veggies!” he scowls, looking almost personally offended, and Koschei takes a step back, pale as a sheet. “Oh, you did that on purpose! I knew I wouldn't be able to sway you so easily from tree melons. Anyway, yes, it's me and I'm here. Hello!” 

Koschei drops like a stone, cross-legged on the glass floor, and the _ghost_ startles and takes a couple of tentative steps closer, frowning in worry. 

“Are you alright? I didn't think I would startle you so—Whoa!” 

Before the ghost can move, Koschei jumps to his feet and engulfs him in a hug – and slips right through his middle, colliding instead with the banister, which bruises his stomach and knocks the wind right out of him. 

He coughs a couple times, holding the railing so tightly that his knuckles go white, and turns around to see the ghost frozen as it reaches for him, face twisted into a pained and remorseful look. 

“Sorry. Not really as 'here' as you thought. I should've made that clearer.” 

“What are you?” Koschei asks in a rasp as he straightens, one hand still clutching the railing while the other is trembling in a fist by his side. 

The apparition rubs his neck as he shifts away. 

“Well, you know… I'm not really sure myself. I _think_ I'm a projection made by your own mind. Like what Rose said, remember? The whole guardian angel speech she gave you on New Year. I'm glad you met her, by the way, isn't she fantastic?” 

“_Doctor,”_ Koschei hisses before he can think better about it, and the ghost startles before turning to him with a bright smile. 

“You called me Doctor!” he chirps, elated, before leaning back, hands in his pockets, to frown at the ceiling. “Only, I'm not sure I should go by that anymore. I'm just an 'imaginary friend', after all,” he adds with a chuckle, meeting Koschei's eyes with a mischievous grin. 

“You know about—” 

“Amelia Pond! Quite a brilliant young woman, isn't she? I think you should go back, offer her a ride on the TARDIS.” 

“No way! Who do you think I am, _you?_ I don't want to keep human pets!” Koschei scoffs, rushing to fiddle with the controls if only so he no longer has to look at the apparition. 

“Who said anything about taking her in as a companion? I said 'offer her a ride'. That means one, just one. Well, maybe two, one to the past and one to the future. _Well—” _

“Is that how you do it? Seduce young human women with 'just one trip'?” he mocks, giving the Doctor a lecherous grin over his shoulder. 

“Oi! That is _not—_I would _never—”_ he sputters, beet red and gesturing madly with his hands, and Koschei turns to lean against the console with a chuckle, earning himself a pout. “They're _humans._ And you have no room to talk, you actually _married_ one!” 

“Political move. A Prime Minister without a Prime Lady? Unheard of,” he explains with a shrug before turning serious. “Why are you here? Really, now.” 

“… I really don't know,” the ghost answers, calm once more as he meets his gaze. “Maybe you are still coping, and your subconscious thinks you need me to deal with it,” he suggests, but Koschei shots that suggestion down with a snort. 

“How about you being an echo from that half-assed mental link when you _ripped_ the drums out?” he comments almost casually, and the ghost flinches, pulling on an ear. “I _told you,_ you weren't strong enough for that. Look what happened! Neither of us was in the right frame of mind for something like that.” 

“Well, it wasn't like we would have any other chances! I was _dying,_ Master. I wasn't going to leave you with the pain of that _and_ those bloody drums!” the ghost answers with an almost fearsome scowl, defensive in a way that is far more familiar than the hologram's playful annoyance, and far worse for the same reasons. 

However, Koschei doesn't flinch at the anger, but at the words. 

_This_ is more than enough confirmation of his theory of this apparition being an echo of the Doctor, this amount of detail that he could have known about had he only been in the right frame of mind at the time. For all he knew back then, kneeling on the floor of the Naismith Mansion with the Doctor's dying form in his arms, that mind link hadn't been more than an attempt at saying goodbye, and the drum-ripping was an afterthought. 

“Master?” 

“Don't call me that,” he protests weakly, looking away, and that's when it dawns. 

The Master, the name he chose all those centuries ago… It doesn't fit anymore, twisted after all this time. Or maybe it is _him_ which has been changed beyond recognition, instead of the name. 

One way or another, the ghost nods solemnly, agreeing. 

“What would you like to be called then?” 

“… I don't know.” 

“Well, that's something we'll have to figure out together, then. Right, Koschei?” 

“Whatever you say, Theta,” he huffs with a smile, and reaches for the controls with a destination in mind. 

* * *

When Amy wakes up in the middle of the night, she's not sure _why. _

Nerves? Yes, but not enough to wake her up without reason. Need to use the toilet? No, not really. Nightmare? She's pretty sure the answer to that is no as well. 

So, why… 

And that's when she catches the strange sound growing quieter and stopping. 

Only, it isn't _that_ strange. Amy has heard this sound before, thrice, and she will _never_ forget it. 

She rushes to the window, heart in her throat, and _there it is._ The blue box. The Raggedy Doctor is back. 

Amy throws a jacket on and rushes outside, half expecting him to have vanished by the time she gets to the garden, but he hasn't. He's outside the box, leaning next to the door, and his smirk widens when their eyes meet. 

“Hello, Amelia.” 

“It's you,” Amy whispers, disbelief swept away by recognition at hearing that name, the one only this man insists on using anymore. “You came back. And you changed your clothes,” she points out, trying to calm the storm in her mind. 

The Doctor grimaces. 

“Yeah, well… Not exactly my choice, in a sense. To either of those,” he answers with a shrug, looking down at himself instead of elaborating. 

He's wearing gray jeans, white trainers, a white sweater and a blue jacket, instead of the pale suit she last saw him in. It is so _normal,_ so _human_ that it takes her a moment to realize he's gone silent, a hand resting on his chest as he looks at his feet almost forlorn. 

Amy takes a deep breath, centering herself – and crosses the space between them with two long steps, grabs his arm, and drags him to the house. 

“What the—” 

“You've got a lot of explaining to do, mister, and I won't risk having you run back into your time traveling box again! So, get in and _sit down_ while I go put on some clothes, and if you dare even _think_ about vanishing, _I will find you,”_ she threatens once they're inside, pushing him into the kitchen and channeling all her anger into one very effective glare. 

Eyes blown wide in a perfect 'deer in the headlights' impersonation, the Doctor merely gulps. 

“_Sit.” _

He sits. Amy nods, satisfied, and makes to go to her room to get dressed, when he tentatively lifts a hand. 

Amy feels like laughing, but it looks like the shock is clearing up, as he's smiling sheepishly now, so she keeps up her no-nonsense face. 

“You may speak.” 

“First, I thought you were a kissogram? Where does this dominatrix thing come from?” he asks, no trace of any sheepishness in his grin, and Amy blushes madly. “And second, yeah, I get it, explaining and you being in your nightie and all that. Can I get something to eat while you change? I'm _famished.” _

Still bright red like a tomato, Amy just nods before running away, catching his cackling before she slams the door shut at her back. 

A second later, she opens it again and looks at the stairs. 

“You're the worst! Make me a sandwich too!” 

“Any preferences?!” 

“Ham and cheese!” 

He laughs again, but Amy closes the door before he can answer. What if she developed a fondness for ham and cheese sandwiches after his first visit when she was seven? Doesn't mean they aren't good. 

She dresses in record time, but like all those years ago, he has the stove going and the food already cooking by the time she gets to the kitchen, almost like it had taken her longer or he had made the appliances go faster. 

There's a ham and cheese sandwich on a plate in the same spot she sat at when they first met, with an apple in front of what was his seat. 

An apple with a smiling face cut into it by clumsy kid hands. 

“I put it in my pocket and forgot about it. Found it when I changed and I thought it was about time I ate it,” he says over his shoulder when he notices her looking at the apple, and, as if it was an invitation, she picks it up to see if it really is as fresh as it looks. “Yes, it's the same one. Time travel, remember?” 

“It still feels like a dream,” she whispers, sitting down and, smiling at the apple, she finally puts it down where it belongs. 

Amy's about to burst with questions, but she decides to take a deep breath instead and eat her sandwich. In the meantime, he finishes cooking his scrambled eggs, toast and some pancakes, the last of which he shares with her and she almost melts at the fluffiness. Once his plate is clean, Amy rests her hands on the table, back straight, and gives him a very serious look. 

“Question time, right? Okay, before we begin, just letting you know I reserve the right to answer,” he tells her, leaning back in his seat with a smirk. 

“Fair enough,” Amy concedes, hoping he will at least answer _some_ of her questions. “Let's start with the basics,” she tells him, and he nods in agreement even if the glint in his eyes tells her he's going to give her Hell. “Is your name really Harold Saxon?” 

He looks startled, which counts as a win in Amy's book, but he easily replaces the surprise with a wide grin and a hint of pride in his gaze. 

“That was _fast!_ Good job! And no, it isn't, I made that up,” he tells her like one would a puppy that has learned a new trick, though the pride in his eyes is genuine. 

It doesn't make the patronizing tone any less stinging, though, which is why she blurts out her next question with far less control than she would have liked. 

“What was that thing last Christmas? What did you do?!” 

“Oi, _I_ didn't do anything. I just gave the order to blow up the ship, which saved all of London, must I add. I thought the Racnoss were gone, like the rest of the universe,” he answers calmly, shrugging and shifting so that he can rest an arm on the backrest of the chair, the very picture of calm and cool. 

Amy frowns. 

“The what? Which ship? No, I'm talking about the bloody planet that appeared out of nowhere, and everyone's faces turning into – into _yours!_ What _was_ that?!” she tries again, gesturing a bit, and, this time, he looks lost. 

For just a moment. 

As soon as he processes her words, when he realizes what she means… 

Had Amy slapped him, he wouldn't have looked as pained as he does now, gaze unfocused as he loses himself in his memories, before he turns away from her with a flinch. 

The Doctor curls into himself, losing any pretense at coolness, with one hand clutching something under his shirt, before, with a deep breath, his face turns to stone-cold seriousness. 

“July 2010. Skaro ablaze, I only meant to skip one day,” he hisses dangerously, glaring at the ground, before shifting so he can face Amy again, resting his hands on the table with a bit of difficulty, but keeping his eyes on the empty plate. “Don't worry about last Christmas. It's over. It will _never_ happen again,” he tells her, darkness in his voice that makes his calm tone not sound calm at all. 

“The faces thing or the planet?” she asks softly, unsure whether she's scared of him or _for_ him. 

His hands are shaking, even if he doesn't seem to realize it, and not even their curling into tight fists can hide that. 

He's in pain, the memories of whatever happened last Christmas did this, hurt him deeply, and he hasn't healed yet. Him, the Raggedy Doctor, the man that crashed with his time machine in her garden and faced an inquisitive seven-year-old, a crack in space, an alien guard, the very real risk of his time machine burning, being chained to a radiator by a pretend policewoman, confronting and defeating an alien criminal, _and_ sending an alien battlefleet running with their tails between their legs. None of that made him quiver, none of that hurt him, but whatever happened last Christmas did. 

He's hurting, and the only thing Amy can do is stretch over the table to grab his cold hand with her own. 

The Doctor freezes, looking at the hand on his as if it had appeared out of nowhere. Slowly, though, he turns his own around and squeezes Amy's reassuringly. 

“Neither,” he answers simply, not as coldly as before, and Amy just nods with a soft 'okay'. 

He breaks contact after a minute or so, leaning back once more, though tiredly this time, and rubbing his face with a sigh. 

She wants to ask more, ask how long ago was that Christmas for him, ask what happened and how she can make it better, but she doesn't. The Doctor needs time, more than anything, and Amy can give him that much at least. 

That, and the apple he seems to have completely forgotten about. Again. 

“Here. It'll get rusty otherwise,” she tells him, pushing the smiling apple closer to him. 

When he drops his hands and sees it, the Doctor snorts, a crooked smirk on his face, and Amy smiles. 

Apparently, she can distract him from his pain as well. Good. This man has done so much for her, it's about time she found a way to return the favor. Even if it seems to be with food, every time. 

“Wouldn't that be a shame,” he answers mockingly, but picks the apple up and makes a show out of biting its 'face' off, growl and all. 

Amy rolls her eyes but doesn't say anything, letting him eat in peace. 

He's just swallowed his second bite when he leans over the table, eyes alight with excitement in a way that makes them look greener. Amy still doesn't know what color they are, exactly, going from Saxon's brown eyes to the Doctor's amber-green, but one thing they are is expressive. She's pretty sure he could give entire speeches with just his eyes, and the public would be completely moved regardless of the lack of words. Saxon was extremely charismatic, after all – before he went crazy, that is. Maybe she should ask about that. 

“Right, I came here for a reason,” he tells her, poking at the table with one finger. “See, I've been bothering you a lot, apparently, and that's supposed to be bad manners. So, what would you say I make up for these twelve years of absence? Fourteen now, I guess, but still, the point stands. One trip in the TARDIS, in the time machine. Past or future, your choice. What do you say?” 

… Right, Amy had definitely _not_ expected that. 

“Uhm. Are you an incredibly clever and charismatic psychopath that has killed and manipulated people to his own aims without remorse?” she blurts out instead, and, as soon as her ears register what she just said, Amy feels like slapping herself. 

“More of a sociopath, actually, but yes, I am,” he answers sincerely with the widest grin yet, almost literally ear to ear, which makes his eyes crinkle. 

He should look insane, he really should. Instead, he looks _happy,_ proud of Amy once more. 

“Wait, what?” 

“What what?” 

“You're crazy!” she shouts, freaking out and at a loss as to what to think, and his adorable confusion turns to an indignant pout. 

“Well, _of course_ I am! Do you think I would be doing what I do if I was _sane?_ That'd be crazy!” he explains with some hand gestures that practically scream 'what the Hell'. “No one in my line of work is sane, let's be real. But! I'm far less crazy than I was a couple days ago, I—” he explains with what Amy decides to call his 'politician smile', big and knowing and charming, but the expression freezes before he can actually get to explaining _what_ happened two days ago. 

Amy knows what happened two days ago _to her._ But what does that mean to a time traveler? ‘Two days ago’ could be two days ago, or it could be two months, two minutes, or— 

Last Christmas. 

He lets his hands drop, gaze lost on the floor once more, before he reaches for whatever is under his shirt, rubbing it gently. 

“You're right. Maybe it's best if I get you a present or something,” the Doctor tells her with a blank voice, though there's something heavy dragging it down that makes Amy reach for his hand once more, squeezing it so he meets her eyes again. 

“I'd love to come with you, Doctor.” 

He stiffens, amber eyes widening minutely with a pain that makes them shine with unshed tears, before he looks away and pulls his hand back almost violently. 

“Don't call me that. That's not my name, _don't call me that,”_ he hisses threateningly, hands clenching into fists, and Amy hesitates, worried for a moment before she realizes he's not moving. 

Pain, right. She has to keep reminding herself that he's in pain. 

Last Christmas—_two days ago—_was awful for him. But he said it himself, he said that the time machine is a 'doctor box', and he told the Atraxi that he was the Doctor, the man that stopped all those aliens from invading so many times before the Atraxi even came to Earth for the first time. 

… There's the whole _Saxon created some killing machines and murdered the President of the United States on live TV while trying to pass it off as some kind of alien invasion_ thing, too, but _that_ doesn't sound like what she has _seen_ this man do. 

Is he really a man, though? The Atraxi said he wasn't 'of this world'. Maybe they meant he wasn't 'of this time', what with him being a time traveler. Definitely from the future, time travel is impossible now. And he _looks_ human. Cold hands, but really, that's no reason to call someone an alien, for Pete's sake. 

“What should I call you then?” she asks him once she remembers what they were talking about, and the Doctor hesitates, hands clenching and unclenching, before he frowns at her wall. 

“… Not that,” he answers at last, and Amy throws her hands up with a huff. 

“Right, extremely useful, Raggedy Man. What would I do without you?” she scoffs, earning herself an eyeroll. 

He relaxes back in his seat, though, so she counts it as a victory. 

“Don't make me answer that,” he answers playfully, smirking in a way that is most definitely _not_ playful, but Amy knows him well enough by now to know when he's a serious danger and when he's just trying to scare the pants out of people, so she recognizes this as the second instance. 

And Amy Pond is _not_ easily scared, not after growing up with a crack in her wall leading to a prison and chasing an alien criminal down fantastic worlds with a time traveler with a screwdriver and a blue box. 

She lifts an eyebrow, unimpressed, and he chuckles. 

“Amelia Pond, dragon-kicking and knight-rescuing princess, and minder of crazy time-traveling aliens,” he says with a sigh, dropping his head back so he misses Amy's scowl and the following surprise. 

“Wait, you're really an alien then? From another world, not just another time?” she asks, deciding to let the matter of the name go for now, and he lifts his head back up to give her a grimace of distaste. 

“Oh, come on! You didn't really think I was human, did you? I told you when you were a kid!” 

“I thought you were kidding, that you were trying to cheer me up!” 

“Why would I _do_ that?” 

“I was a kid!” 

“And that means I should automatically lie?” he asks, incredulous, and Amy stops herself before retorting with 'why should you not'. 

Adults lie to kids. Because it's too complicated, because they're too young, because they're too innocent… Whatever the reason, the truth is that adults lie to children. And yet, here the Raggedy Doctor is, looking for all intents and purposes like he can't wrap his mind around telling a child a lie, even if it is to make them feel better. 

“No… No, I guess not. It's just… That's what everyone does. 'It's too complicated', 'you'll know when you're older', that kind of thing,” she tells him, and finds herself starting to believe he really is an alien. “Don't you do that in your planet?” 

His nose scrunches again, less in distaste and more in anger and something she can't identify. 

“No,” he tells her simply, with a finality that almost makes her startle, before she shakes her head. 

Looks like the Doctor's planet is in the same list as 'Last Christmas'. Touchy subjects. 

“Alright. You're a time-travelling alien. Why do you look human?” she asks instead, and he gives her another insulted look. 

“I don't look human, _we_ came first. Humans look like Time Lords.” 

“Time Lords? Oh, that isn't pretentious at all,” Amy huffs before she can stop herself, but he grins widely this time. 

“Who said they weren't?” 

Weren't. Past tense. Is he talking about whoever decided 'Time Lord' was a good name for the species, or is he using the past tense because the species is extinct? 

But he's still here. It can't be. 

“Right,” Amy lets out as she calms down her mind, thoughts running rampart and senselessly all around it. “Being able to travel in time doesn't make you lords of it.” 

Instead of a verbal answer, he tilts his head back and lets his grin widen from ear to ear, a knowing look in his amused eyes. 

“Oh, shut up!” 

He makes a really exaggerated 'who, me?' face, before going as far as mime zipping and locking his lips closed, 'pocketing' the key with a tap and a satisfied grin. 

“You're a clown, you know that?” Amy snorts, and, to prove her point, he answers her without separating his lips, as if they had really been zipped shut. 

Amy laughs and, when she's finally getting her breath back, he takes out the 'key' again and unzips his lips, sending her into renewed laughter. 

“I said, yes, I know. Clowns are terrifying, wouldn't you agree?” 

“When you grin like that, yes, I agree,” she answers when she's managed to calm down, before standing up and picking up the dishes. “So, what about that trip, Raggedy Man?” 

“One trip to the past or the future, your choice, and we can be back in five minutes,” he tells her, picking up a tea towel to dry the dishes once she's done washing them. 

“A five-minute trip?” 

“Of course not, we wouldn't even lift off. Time machine, remember? We could go around the Earth in eighty days in the Victorian era, or take a day-long trip to the frozen seas of Woman's Wet, and still be back just five minutes after you left.” 

“Woman's Wet?” 

“… Don't look at me like that, it's the name of the planet, _I_ didn't give it to it.” 

“Whatever you say, Raggedy Man.” 

Amy smiles widely and her Raggedy Doctor smiles back.

**Author's Note:**

> I based Amelia's part on the scout kids I was leader of, but she somehow comes across as younger than seven… Is that just me? My scouts were eight to ten, and I used the younger ones for inspiration, but still… Writing kids is _hard._
> 
> The main differences between the Eleventh Doctor and the Master are due to different things. One is that they are not the same person. The other is that the Master is not high on regeneration energy (no slamming into trees and the food mess because the body is new and he doesn't know how to deal with it yet) nor has he regenerated recently, and so is in control of himself. Which, of course, makes him come across as a responsible, if grumpy and weird, adult, and so Amelia can be a kid instead of a babysitter. And that, in turn, will shape the image she has of the Raggedy Doctor in her adulthood.
> 
> Also, seven-year-old kid cooking? My dad didn't let me anywhere close to the stove until I was ten, and not without a step to stand on so my eyes weren't level with the fire, so I used my own experience.
> 
> Fairies are freaky and seen in the _Torchwood_ episode _Small Worlds._
> 
> On why no one recognized the Master as Harry Saxon until 2010: Amy was the only one to actually see him in 1996, everyone else saw him through her stories and cartoons and so on. She was seven. Memories get blurred with age and change with _how_ people remember stuff too (like how people always remember something different than it is in the pictures). Also, the Master didn't really change, while Saxon would have surely grown older, so it's _impossible_ for someone to look exactly the same after twelve years. So, yeah, maybe Amy saw one of Saxon's campaigns and thought the guy looked familiar, but couldn't say why. Plus, Saxon's own 'influence' to make him look reliable and trustworthy while the Master hadn't hidden at all, appearing as he was, grumpy and ragged. After learning he's a time travelling alien, though? Amy puts things together quite fast.
> 
> The TARDIS looks mostly like the Eleventh Doctor's, but without all the nautical bits and with the console still somewhat organized like the coral TARDIS. Also, lots of bubbles in the time rotor, not just one string. It kind of wrote itself that way, honestly. I planned to have her be like the Eleventh's, but my brain decided that no, it didn't fit. Apparently, the TARDIS agreed. Which, in turn, led to the whole explanation for the coral design and... I don't really know if the Time Reapers are wild TARDISes either, I sincerely don't know where that came from (probably from the whole 'when was TARDIS first coined' and the Time Travel Capsules thing…).
> 
> Also, kind of plothole filling with all the resurrection explanation, but well, _potions of life_ and _potions of death?_ Ouch. Just... Ouch. So, yeah, my brain came up with something it liked better, and I've got to agree with it. It helps that it delivers more of a _In The Feels_ punch, though that wasn't my original intention…
> 
> TARDIS holographic protocols. Love those. Perfect closure for those left behind… Especially when you're a space-faring and time-travelling race with a somewhat militaristic take on your travels. Time Lord headcanon time: Time Lord is a rank, a position, a _job_ that consists on fixing temporal anomalies. TARDIS are piloted by six Time Lords. Time Lords are formed in the Academy, which has one Chapterschool after each of the six Gallifreyan Chapters, of which Prydon and Arcal are two. So, each Chapterschool specializes on something relating to a Time Lord's duty, teams are formed upon graduation, containing one member from each Chapterschool, and these teams are sent under an experienced Time Lord for their service. After, the Time Lords can either return to their duties on Gallifrey or continue as active Time Lords. Problem is, they are going _on missions_ and they might not return, so they record messages for those left, mostly family.
> 
> And yes, I went there. The Doctor was born a woman, regenerated into the First Doctor, and left Gallifrey. Ten Doctors, plus War Doctor, plus Metacrisis, makes twelve incarnations, and the woman Doctor makes thirteen. Regeneration mystery solved!
> 
> … The ghost Doctor wasn't in the original drafts, I swear. But now I can't get rid of him, I've plans already… And Koschei needs a new name (insert sigh and facepalm). What am I going to do with you, boys...
> 
> Next time: Amy visits Starship UK, and Koschei realizes he _wasn't_ wrong about humans.
> 
> I'm going to follow the series until Rory joins the team, mostly because these episodes are pivotal to the series' plot or the characters' development. After that, though, expect deviation.


End file.
